Why do all the male CS applicants sound the same???

I’ve been looking at a ton of college application profiles, especially for top STEM schools, and I can’t help but notice a pattern—so many male applicants have almost identical extracurriculars and achievements.

It’s always something like: • Research in [insert trendy CS/AI/engineering/biotech topic] at [insert summer program/professor’s lab/self-started project] • Founder/President of a [insert research/CS/AI/finance] club at school • USACO/PICO/APIO or some other Olympiad-level achievement • Math/Physics competitions (AIME, USAMO, etc.) • Internship at a startup or doing “consulting” for some company • Some kind of nonprofit/educational initiative (tutoring, outreach, STEM for underprivileged students) • A bunch of Coursera/Udemy projects coded up and hosted on GitHub • Writing a research paper and posting it on arXiv or ResearchGate • Applying AI to [insert social issue] to make it sound impactful

Not saying these are bad, but like COME ON, I feel like AOs are getting bored of this…

Edit:

These are all VERY impressive feats in and of itself.

I’m NOT trying to dismiss anyone’s hard work, but at the high school I come from, so many people are doing these exact same activities; founding research clubs, working on AI projects, and honestly, it feels like a lot of them are just doing it to check boxes and fit the mold of the “ideal applicant.” I know a LOT of it is fake.

It’s hard to ignore how much of it comes across as performative. Everyone seems so focused on building the “perfect” resume that it’s hard to tell who’s genuinely passionate about their activities versus who’s just doing what they think colleges want to see. The same clubs get founded every year, the same awards are pursued, and it all starts to feel like a scripted race rather than an authentic pursuit of interests.

I get that everyone is under a lot of pressure to stand out, especially for competitive majors, but when everyone follows the same formula, it just makes things feel even more hollow. I feel like this “blueprint” approach to applications might be hurting creativity or individuality.