"A kid will come in and say, 'I've never climbed Mount Everest or built a robot that cleans the house,' " says Will Dix, a counselor at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School and a former Amherst admissions officer. But colleges generally look for evidence of how students will take advantage of the opportunities in college. "Colleges are looking, I think, for a kind of consciousness that shows them you can think about what you're doing," he said.

"If they're being contrived about this, about presenting themselves, then the likelihood of finding the good match is diminished, because we're admitting the kid we see on paper," said David Lesesne, dean of admission at Sewanee.

"Sometimes parents will say, 'Show me copies of really good essays,' " says Susan Weingartner, director of college counseling at the Francis W. Parker School in Chicago. "I have more than you can shake a stick at, but I'll just say, 'No.' Because that's an essay that was good for somebody else."