So much of your comment is wrong:

> These extra curricular activities, were the secret game you had to play, to get into prestigious universities. At least, it was just a few years ago.

Extracurriculars have been a part of elite school admissions for about a century.

It hasn’t really been a secret for most of that time.

Some people (somewhat correctly) say that this requirement was added to discriminate against Jews at that time, but it was also an education idea (“Progressive Education” by Dewey) that gained popularity around the same time.

Regardless of what the initial catalyst was, the universities seemed to like having folks who were “doers” as a significant part of their student body.

> Besides niche sports like lacrosse and rowing

These are not “niche sports” in certain parts of the country.

> there was the volunteer activities like serving at a soup kitchen.

I can tell you point blank that serving in a soup kitchen does not help you get into an elite school.

For any school that ranks such things, if you have a laundry list of volunteer activities like this, it would get you the next to lowest rating in extracurriculars — this is basically the same as not doing anything.

The key to getting an high rating for any volunteer activity would be to show leadership (which is something the elite schools says point blank that they want) and meaningful impact.

> When Ivy League universities saw a resume like that, they knew which social class the student belonged to.

I’ve got news for you. A wide range of classes of people do these things.

There might be a floor at the absolutely lowest end of the economic spectrum (just due to instability of housing and food), but I’ve seen a ton of great examples from folks who were not upper or upper middle class. Often times necessity can be the mother of invention!

I assure you that these stories stand out to admissions committees, with the biggest challenge often being simply to get some of these folks from modest means to apply.