I live in an area where the packaging game has been perfected to an art-form (think paying 5-6 figures to a consultant at 8th grade who will organize trips to third world countries for the next 4 years for community service, help set up non-profits at age 14, send kids over to train with fencing, rowing and archery coaches who have connections to college coaches) etc. These kids write essays about how life-changing it was to work in an orphanage in some unheard-of village in a remote country and think of 30 other kids in that group writing about the same experience and it begins to look repetitive.

With the game being played at that level, chances are that admissions officers can see through all the packaging easily because if you look carefully, there is a formula that is being used to game the system which is easy to spot. I believe that with the admissions scandals ongoing, the elite universities are going to be more vigilant about packaging.

In our case, we are not packaging.