thumper1, you are right that GPA shows what it shows - and we shall spend some time to find better options consistent with all this. It is not a complete list by any stretch… just representative samples. He has started reaching out to music faculty and so far they have been quite helpful.
Neela1 - makes sense. I didn’t mean that he would just be doing a project. Gap year would only make sense if he can go help out a soccer team with his analytics work… like a long internship is what I was thinking. On music, he just likes to play… and in the past couple of years he averaged a lot more practice hours and hence started getting more technically sound and also musical. He is not inclined to pursue it as a career but doesn’t quite want to stop leveling up also. I think we are trying to figure out what to do as well.