For example, in FRC robotics theres 50 on a team but less than 10 actually do stuff.
What I don’t like is that the people who don’t do stuff can write the activity on college apps. Like a person wrote fancy stuff about what they did in software on their resume/college apps, but in reality they rarely came in and nearly got kicked out for attendance issues. They also called themselves a subteam lead, but in reality they were just assigned to work on a small subsystem and didn’t actually lead anyone.
Is the harsh reality that colleges can’t really see through these things, and that being in a position like Software Lead the only way to solidify on college apps that you were a big contributor?
Most of these activities mean diddly squat to top colleges. Focus on your own passions. This was a wonderfully true list of activities that matter posted by someone on here:
Why do you assume that they can’t? Students have been padding ECs forever, and AOs know it. When you read hundreds of applications you know when it hangs together- and when it doesn’t. If the person whose application you seem to have read was accepted to a school which you think they didn’t deserve, pretty certainly it wasn’t on the back of what looks like a relatively small EC.
With all due respect, you seem to spend too much time focusing on the things that, in your view, will unfairly result or has unfairly resulted in you not obtaining admission to the school(s) you want or wanted to attend.
You tend to make sweeping categorical statements about various topics in this general category of “road blocks to admission,” and you often don’t get it right or lack any nuance on the topic.
As others have advised, focus on yourself. If you were denied admission somewhere, quit looking for a scapegoat and do well where you wound up. If you are a prospective college student, then you really should be focused on making your application the best it can be and quit, as my mother still tells me, borrowing problems from the future.
All this has been debated in untold number of posts in much more depth and nuance by people on this forum who are very well informed about these topics. Your shotgun approach with your stated or implied biases, on this forum, won’t result in any real learning or insight.
