I find it alarming that you assumed honesty on the part of the admissions officers. It reduces my confidence in everything you wrote that you assumed honesty from people whose job it is to be gatekeepers to the American elite class.

Well you can't assume honesty from anyone about their preferences. Unless they are talking about a completely innocuous quirk, e.g. that they prefer strawberry ice cream to vanilla ice cream. For one thing, people are often not fully aware of their preferences. For another, when people talk about what goes in in their head, they have a tendency to spin so as to put themselves in the best possible light.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jys/what_colleges_look_for_in_extracurricular/aqp9

See also

[Edit: The post below gives the impression that our conversations with admissions officers are our only reasons for believing the claims. We've also consulted with other sources such as How to Be a High School Superstar: A Revolutionary Plan to Get into College by Standing Out (Without Burning Out) which corroborate the admissions officers' remarks]