Thanks, that must have been the publication I read the article about when it first came out.

A comparable piece of hypocrisy would be the practice of gapping, where colleges admit students on the basis of academic merit, but then discourage low SES students from attending by cutting down the financial aid offered to an amount that makes attendance financially unfeasible for them

Parents who spend a good chunk of the week shuttling kids to and from soccer practice or drama club might be comforted by new research that suggests this effort is not in vain – as long as their kids are good at math, too.

A recent paper from UCSB found that the return on being good at math has gone up over the last few decades, as has the return on having high social skills (some combination of leadership, communication, and other interpersonal skills). But, the paper argues, the return on the two skills together has risen even faster.

What does all that have to do with soccer practice? The research compared two groups of white, male U.S. high school seniors – the class of 1972 and the class of 1992 – to see how earnings associated with social and math skills have changed over time. Using two National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveys, it looked at senior year math scores on standardized tests, questions about extracurricular participation and leadership roles, and individual earnings seven years after graduating high school. And it corroborated the findings with Census and CPS data.

The analysis found that while math scores, sports, leadership roles, and college education were all associated with higher earnings over the 1979-1999 period, the trend over time in the earnings premium was strongest among those who were both good at math and engaged in high school sports or leadership activities. In other words, it pays to be a sociable math whiz, more so today than thirty years ago.

Some commentators will call gapping unfair. Schools that don't gap will charge very different prices to students from families at different income levels, and the parents paying full freight may consider that unfair, since it does not cost more to educate their children. There are multiple plausible definitions of fairness.

I'm trying to understand how and why "elite" colleges (not necessarily just Ivies) select students to admit using not just academics, but also "Extra-Curriculars" (ECs)... I'd specifically like to hear actionable information and actual experiences.

The definitions of actionable include:
1. giving sufficient reason to take legal action, for example a lawsuit against an school which did not grant a student admission.
2. able to be done or acted on; having practical value, for example coaching a student about academics/extracurriculars to increase likeliness for admission to an elite or ivy league school.

Which type of "actionable information" have you been seeking with this thread?