Quote:
a lot of schools really look for leadership qualities. forming a club or leading a team would really help in that regard.
sadly, this is one of the reasons there are fewer people from middle america(both in geography and income) in institutions like MIT. There is definately a lack of opportunity to distinguish one's self on admissions when alot of the southern states lack extra-curricular activities excluding sports(I started a petition for starting a computer programming club in my local area, 3-4 signatures out of 30000+ people were were even slightly interested, and out of those people, only 1 was actually interested in programming). also, being middle income level sets you too high to be considered a hard working student if you succeed in school(which is what you would get if you were poor), but too low to pay off the admissions office like the people in the top income brackets.