&gt; &quot;Admissions deans are stepping up collectively to underscore the importance of meaningful engagement in communities and greater equity for economically diverse students.”<p>What in the world does community engagement have to do with a student&#x27;s ability to succeed? I did absolutely jack squat in terms of extra curriculars and community service in high school because I was busy working to support myself and my family.<p>&gt; &quot;“Turing the Tide offers recommendations to tackle both of these issues simultaneously by promoting the quality of academic engagement over the quantity of achievements in college admissions.”<p>Who determines what is quality of a particular activity? How is it measured? How are they compared against each other? These are entirely subjective concepts that exist only in the heads of the admissions staff and should not be used to evaluate anything. There is no way to test it, there is no way to verify or reproduce results, it&#x27;s entirely hand wavy undeterminable hoo hah.<p>&gt; &quot;We don’t want students who do things just because they think they have to in order to get into college. To the contrary: we want students who lead balanced lives, who pursue their interests with energy and enthusiasm, and who work cooperatively with others, all of which will help them be successful in and after college,”<p>The goal is good, but now those students you don&#x27;t want to pressure are now going to have to figure out not just how to work in all their community crap into their already burdened schedules, but to make sure they choose community crap that suits the expectations of the admissions people they&#x27;re targeting as to their demographics? How are they supposed to prepare for this?<p>And for that matter, what on Earth makes community outreach so important as to even determine whether you get into college? Why don&#x27;t we stick to the things we can actually measure, like test scores and grades, taking into account the off-campus workload of the pupil?