It's wrong to judge yourself by the standards of others.
Amanda notices the valedictorian last year had a huge resume and got into all the top colleges.
Amanda wants to get into a top college.
Amanda puts her actual activities on her resume.
Amanda puts activities on her college resume that are likely to look good to colleges, even if she didn’t do them.
The colleges notice she plays the organ and accept Amanda because they need an organist.
All the top colleges notice her lies and blacklist her from their schools.