This is far from new, and the problem’s even deeper. Even high school academic and athletic awards depend on “service,” and that service is variously and arbitrarily defined. If you can’t fight it with the local schools and school boards, there’s no way you can fight it with admissions offices. I’d bet the ranch that it’s code for discriminating against home-schoolers and Conservatives. The only good news is that there are some colleges out there that don’t insist on these banalities.
My homeschooled daughter had no problem providing service hours to get into college. In fact, I’m pretty sure she had more than most kids. About half were church related, but even public universities look kindly on mission trips where the kids are doing hard labor. :)