Yep, I'm another one who doesn't believe what the admissions officers said. There was an NYT article last summer from an "application reader" at Berkeley which was very revealing about how they rank applicants. There are lots of hidden rules. Another piece of fact is that, at the level of the Ivy schools, there are plenty of applicants who have amazing depth AND breadth.
And even on the application forms of private middle and high schools the student needs to elaborate how their skills can contribute to the school. I'm sure the nature of the activities matters to the colleges.
My stand is that I will let my kids do the extracurriculars that will help them become who they want to be. How the colleges look at it is simply something that I don't care. Hopefully the kids will get into a college where they can thrive, but if not the Ivy, who cares?
