Spread too thin??

As future music educators in the 21st century society it is extremely easy to be involved in too many activities. In high school there are almost too many activities in which students can be a part. How many is too many?? Zero would obviously be not enough and therefore, is there a minimum middle ground? I believe that the choice of how many activities is too many is not up to the school but is up to the student. This is a personal preference issue in which the responsibilities of the students school work must be maintained and if the school work has been compromised, the student is spread too thin.
There are influences that higher education systems have that require students to be in so many activities or they will not get into a 'good' school. The schools wants the student to be 'well rounded'. What does well rounded mean? Do the schools want a student that is the captain of the football team and the captain of the chess club? There is no definite structure to a well rounded student only general guidelines. This leaves room for multitudes of activities but can also cause too many activities and not enough time. In creating a well rounded student, the wide range of activities are also the cause of creating a system overload for the students. Not to mention the added stress placed upon high school students of whether or not they will get into a great university or college because of the extracurricular activities required by higher education systems. A students well roundedness is not necessarily going to help a student get into great university or college because all schools are different. Westminster Choir College would not care about an all star football player, but if the same football player was the president of their choir and great musician, he would get in without a doubt.

It seems these days that in order to get a well paying job with health benefits, one needs a minimum of a masters degree. I know that is not the truth but with the growing requirements, it might as well be. With today's economy dropping faster than a sky diver at terminal velocity, a masters degree seems almost unfair to family's who do not own an oil company. Schools need to stop looking at degrees to find out if a teacher is qualified. Today's world is too worried with certification as a means for distinguishing a qualified professional, and I agree it provides a means of comfort, but there are plenty of qualified professionals that just cannot afford the higher degrees.
This brings me to something that has been bothering me for quite a while. music ed. majors at Westminster are required to be well rounded individuals who go into the world to mold the minds of future america, and the B/A degree means you are well rounded in the area of music. So if both are required to be well rounded degrees, then why have the separate degrees? If I blow two bubbles of equal size and they mix together they either pop, which would be bad for both degrees, or they join to create a larger bubble. Now if the two degrees at Westminster are combined like the bubbles, hypothetically we will then have a larger better learning bubble??