Absolutely the same but completely different
Time Travel. In 2020, perhaps nothing would be more welcome to most of us than the chance to travel ahead in time. We could escape 2020 and jump to next year, leaving all this (Covid, unemployment, 20+ named tropical storms, election hysteria) behind. So let's do just that: time travel to the fall of next year, October 2021, and take a peek at two siblings, seniors in high school, who are applying to colleges.
Alberta and Charles are twins who live and go to school in the Pacific Northwest, class of 2022. They both attend the same high school. Let's look at their college applications.
Transcripts - As freshmen in high school, they were A/B students, adjusting to heavier workloads in 9th grade compared to middle school. Starting in 10th grade, Alberta studied diligently for tests, did all the homework on time, and reaped the rewards of these efforts with an A average. Charles put less emphasis on school. Charles didn't use good study habits developed in middle school and didn't really care about grades, as shown by a C average. The spring of their sophomore year was the spring of Covid. Despite their academic differences, each student received a straight A report card when Seattle schools decided to give every student all A grades in their classes (https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/seattle-will-give-high-school-students-as-or-incompletes-colleges-urged-to-adopt-generous-grading/). In the 2020-21 school year, classes went virtual, and cheating was rampant (https://hechingerreport.org/another-problem-with-shifting-education-online-cheating/). Alberta continued to study, never received outside help on homework or tests, and earned straight A grades again during junior year. Charles, like many other students, took advantage of the take-home tests and lack of adult supervision to also get A grades junior year (Charles didn't 'earn' them, but they showed up on the report card). Entering their senior year, both were ready to apply to the same colleges and both had identical transcripts.
Application Essays - Early in their senior year, Charles asked the twin's parents to provide some help writing college essays. They hired a 'writing tutor' to help craft the essays; in the end, the tutor basically wrote all of them for Charles. Alberta wanted to do the essays alone and had best friends review them for grammar and style. It's difficult so say which of the twins had better essays as they were all well written.
Activities Lists - Alberta and Charles have similar interests outside the classroom. One is in band, the other choral. One does soccer, the other lacrosse. Both volunteer at local charitable organizations and each was a member of the high school student government for all four years of high school.
Teacher Recommendations - Charles' best friend's mother is a teacher at the high school and will provide a very good teacher recommendation. Alberta asked her favorite teacher to write a letter of recommendation, and she agreed, but this teacher is writing recommendations for so many students that she won't be able to put in as much effort as she normally does for every student. Both Charles and Alberta will end up with "solid" teacher recommendations.
Miscellaneous - They are siblings and share the same parents, ethnicity, financial background, zip code, religion, and they both identify as the same gender. They attend the same high school and have taken the same classes.
On paper, two very similar candidates. In reality (at least our version of reality), two very different students. But admissions officers at universities can only see what's on the applications in front of them. Sadly, given the state of high school right now (Covid, remote learning) it's almost impossible for hard-working students to differentiate themselves on their transcripts from less hard-working students who manage to get good grades only with the help of education administration (everyone getting an A in Seattle, and other school districts across the country doing similar things) or blatant cheating, which is everywhere.
If only there was some way for motivated students to differentiate themselves academically from others on some type of national standardized test where it would be very difficult to cheat and administrators would grade results individually instead of providing everyone the same score.