@PrimeMeridian – Step 13 in The Onion piece is hilarious. I remember several years ago seeing posters in our neighborhood from a friend’s kid who was doing something like a “Relief Fund” for a natural disaster. The kid was a junior in HS. I thought it was kind of odd. Fast forward a few more years and their second kid was a junior in HS. Wouldn’t you know it, that kid also became compassionate for their fellow humans and put up posters for something some other kind of relief fund.
Anyway, while I laugh at the conspicuous timing of this compassion-awakening I do have to say that the kids actually did something (regardless of how much urging that took or that the reward was their own EC list). Maybe that’s an unstated goal of the holistic admission process – get kids to do things regardless of their true motivation.