Can you have two academic interests on your application?

RReaders in the Stanford admissions office we learned from accepted that a single academic point of excellence, if it is strong enough, can carry an application, which is the logic behind the usual advice to find a spike. They preferred a different profile, though, and it is one few students set out to build.

The spike advice is good as far as it goes, and families who follow it spend years narrowing a student toward one field. The profile those readers liked best looks less focused on paper, and it turns out to be harder for a committee to forget.