<p>There are a lot of questions here along the lines of: will it hurt me that I got a 4 on my AP test? Will it help me that I am an award-winning bamboo flute player? Will it hurt me that I got a B in PE in the 9th grade?</p>
<p>Here’s the stock answer: for colleges that use holistic admissions, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL, anything positive, no matter how small, will help you and anything negative, no matter how small, will hurt you, i.e., when you are being compared to a student who is identical to you except for that one thing.
But since things are NEVER equal, the answer is that small positive things might help you a little, and big positive things might help you a lot.</p>