<p>your art supplement is mailed to the office of admissions then given directly to the department that it correlates with. in order for your supplement to have any impact on your admission decision or add something extra to your application it needs to get a high mark from that department. faculty in the music department will be evaluating your work, recommendation, etc. and they will be the ones to determine whether it is or isn’t of “extraordinary talent”. if they are impressed with your work then they will give you a high mark and this will add strength to your application as well as the ability to stand out. think of it almost like a recommendation, as if the music department is telling the admissions officers one other reason to admit you. it doesn’t mean that you’ll get accepted for sure but it’ll still be valuable. as for the awards, if you look at threads for people who were admitted to Stanford and submitted an arts supplement, some who had several international awards were rejected and some who had no awards were accepted. it’s anybody’s guess how much of a role the supplement or awards really play but if you’re very talented you definitely want to go for it. they probably state that you’re expected to have recieved several awards because those are often the ones that have the quality they are looking for. then again, talent is talent and sometimes they’re will be people who don’t have any state or international awards but are much better than someone who has them. this applies more to visual art though, not so much music since what is considered good or bad art tends to be controversial due to different opinions.</p>