Interesting piece here from a Harvard dean about what elite colleges are looking for.
I only have one question…
College counselors and admissions directors crowded a hotel conference room on Thursday afternoon, many sitting on the floor for want of enough chairs, as William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard, joined in a discussion on “The Ideal High School Graduate 
Mr. Fitzsimmons called successful applicants to Harvard “good all-arounders – academically, extracirricularly and personally,†and he stressed the importance of demonstrating humanity and three-dimensionality in one’s college application. “I want to know, what is it this person does beside chew gum and produce good grades or scores?â€
Was it Mr. Fitzsimmons or the New York Times that couldn’t spell “extracurricular”?
So you’re thinking Mr. Fitzsimmons probably “spelled” the word correctly when he said it out loud, eh? 😉
(In the editorial department where I work, we are forever assuming people did not include unnecessary commas and other bad punctuation in their spoken quotes, too.)
*shudders* Sound it out, Mr. Fitzsimmons! Even phonetically, the word is glaringly wrong.
Too funny. I wonder how many people wrote to NYT demanding explanation…