However, in many higher educations institution admissions do consider the extracurricular activities essential in creating the "well rounded student." For instance, medical school, requires the inclusion of not only science, but also research, arts, sports, etc. That's why there are so many of the "pre-med junkies" running around trying to everything.

The social value of creating this mindset for high school students for college is not completely "unproductive." It sounds good at first, having students think ahead in life, but in this time and age it's backfired. It's just the mere brainwashing of students to think quantity is better than quality, as they join as many extracurriculars as they can. As such one can see these students are probably the ones who have been pushed to become the future "pediatricians" of the world, since that's what everyone wants to be. Their effort to be well rounded has cost them the time to be better utilized in learning a valuable skill or another. En masse, I would have to say that they might encourage narrow prospects of only becoming doctors, rather than their intended meaning to broaden a world view.