<p>So I often hear people saying that you should pursue one or two things you are passionate about, and colleges want people passionate about a subject, and then the next posts says that colleges want wellrounded kids, kids that pursue a diverse number of activities...so which is it??!?!?!?</p>
<p>You can't be passionate about a subject and also be well rounded, that just shows that all the other subjects are superficially tacked on, and if you are truely well rounded, that means you have nothing special to show for.</p>
<p>I personally think that colleges looks more specializing, not the pretty overrated "well-roundedness"</p>
<p>I just read a different take on colleges desire to be well rounded. Some colleges may look for a well rounded CLASS of students not just a well rounded INDIVIDUAL. In other words, they may want a pianist, an artist, an athlete, a minority, and math olympiad versus one individual who is passionate about all of these areas. Together this group would create a well rounded environment. I am sure this is not true of all schools, but I thought it was interesting.</p>
<p>There are people who are passionate about a variety of things. Such people are rarer than are people passionate about one or two things, but they do exist.</p>
<p>Exactly. This is why, for *most *students (see NSM’s comment), the best route is to specialize rather than spread yourself too thin. There are very few students with the passion and time managamenet skills to juggle multiple, diverse activities without getting two hours of sleep a night or getting burned out.</p>
<p>I know this one guy who LOVES math. He pursued it far past the (rather limited) extracurricular opportunities my school has, and his application showed this all very clearly. The problem is, he didn’t care much for other things, including the rest of his schoolwork. So his As in math were tempered by low Bs and Cs in everything else, and he ended up getting accepted to a mid tier public school. So if your passion for something makes everything else suffer… well, that’s not really going to work.</p>
<p>The issue is not “passionate v. well-rounded;” rather, it’s “lop-sided v. well-rounded.” Harvard, for example, wants both the lop-sided and the well-rounded, but every one of its admits is passionate about something.</p>