Could this be a spike?

Applying to College
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Could a serious piano extracurricular count as a spike for college applications? Even if the applicant is majoring in another non related field (and perhaps minoring in music)?Could this make up for other areas of the application that maybe aren’t as strong?

This includes winning national/international competitions, performing chamber music, working as a paid accompanist, recording music for Spotify, playing with orchestras and choirs, and founding a club related to music and volunteering?

Thanks. By the way, this is something I seriously enjoy, and am not just doing for college.

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Yo-Yo Ma played at Carnegie Hall when he was 7. Did that help him get into Harvard? I would like to say so.

Yes, your music interests will help. As for what counts as “spike”? That’s more difficult to define. But keep doing what you love will be / should be the advice.

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Absolutely yes. Piano probably less than orchestra/band instruments since there is less institutional need but if you look at the music forum you will see that many of our kids have gotten into highly selective schools with a music spike. My S24 attends one of the precollege music programs and almost every kid who graduated iwth him is going to a highly selective school.

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Will depend on the school.

In general your academics are what matters but there’s a difference between really good and best in the world. Like an Olympian.

Good luck.

5

This is just not true for music. Kids who perform at high level for music and highlight it in their application (along with excellent academics) have a big benefit for admissions. Piano may be a little less than other instruments since they are not needed for ensembles but if you look at outcomes from high level music precollege and summer programs the kids all go to highly selective schools.

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I would suggest that you get in touch with the other students who won these competitions in the previous years and ask about their college application experiences. This is assuming their levels of play are very similar to yours.
If you have several universities in mind, it’s also informative to ask the current students there how they feel their music EC has contributed to their application process.
I don’t know about pianists. Some of the student musicians I know are string players. Those (I can think of 4) who chose to not major in music performance and believed their playing helped their college admission were all at the level where they could have been (or were) accepted to major BMus programs (such as IU Jacobs, Blair at Vanderbilt, Shepherd at Rice, Bienen at Northwestern, Eastman at Rochester, etc.)

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Calling @parentologist

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Winning international competitions is a good EC, almost independent of which competition you are winning (there might be some exceptions, but they would be very odd).

I have worked in high tech for years. I have seen a significant number of my fellow employees who are very good musicians. I have on multiple occasions been surprised to see some coworker who I had known for years get up on stage and play. In one case he came over between sets, chatted, gave us each a copy of his most recent CD, and then went back on stage and played another set (he was very good – up to this point I had known him as a software engineer). There seem to be a reasonable number of people who are good at music and who are also good at math, and therefore are good at things that are somewhat related to math (such as computer science).

If you read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site, as I understand it, it recommends that you do what is right for you and do it very well. Our family has used this approach with considerable success, but what each of us did was very different. It also got us to eight different universities only one of which was MIT (one each for a bachelor’s, a different one each for graduate school).

This is perfect. It sounds like the approach of “do what is right for you, and do it very well” is exactly what you have done.

Make sure that you apply to safeties, keep your budget in mind, and look for schools that are a good fit for you.

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If you are not doing it as a major, I would be inclined to say it won’t help quite as much as you’d hope. And with piano — they typically won’t have a use for you for in ensembles, either.

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Ooohh, I bow to you. A good accompanist is a thing of beauty. If I could be any type of high level musician, I would choose to be an accompanist. I would love to read an essay written by an accompanist, or hear an interview. I find the whole idea of being a part of someone else’s art fascinating.

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11

Yes. Colleges that value their performing arts scenes but do not have schools of music take musicians, actors, dancers, etc. Keyboards are needed for pit orchestras, as accompanists, as rehearsal pianists. Prepare a 3 min music supplement.

Certain schools give more preference than others. Harvard, for example, loves its performing artists.

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My son’s major activity was music (both piano and drums, as well as composition). He excelled and had all-state recognitions in both jazz and wind ensemble and was a major accompianist for others. He also founded a community service organization based on music. He was admitted to Ivy Leagues and several other top-20 schools. He’ll be attending Stanford this fall, so it worked out for him.

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13

Not only can it help with admission but also with merit $. My D was invited to apply for some music scholarships at some schools even though she was an engineering major.

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14

But we don’t know why he was admitted or whether or not this worked in his favor as opposed to if he was a leader in other areas ( he may have gotten in as well).

OP will only know the impact of the talent after admissions decisions are out.

But I for one, don’t see Stanford taking a less strong student and OP implies this is the case….although perhaps the student is stronger than OP believes.

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I am sure that my kid would never have been admitted to their tippy top school without that extremely high music spike. Sure, they had good grades and a high test score, but so did most of their friends, and most of their friends did not get into top schools.

When kid was able to view their file, it was clear that the ad comm had taken the music spike into account.

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I don’t love the terminology of “spikes”, but generally the whole point of looking at ECs is that residential colleges have all sorts of cherished student activities, indeed it is a big part of being an attractive college, and they need a constant flow of new students to refresh those activities as other students graduate.

And various activities need musicians. So even if you are not going to be a Music major, if they think you might be a significant contributor to one or more important activities, that will be a helpful sort of EC.

But aside from that general observation, from what I have read it then gets tricky to gauge how much it will help. Like at some prominent colleges, even a lot of the non-major music kids might basically have conservatory-level talent, or near, and indeed they might send recordings and such to a musical director of some sort to evaluate. And so getting much relative benefit at those colleges will require that level of demonstrated talent, and you may not necessarily know if the person who does the evaluation will decide they actually want to try to get you.

But other colleges might have a lot of activities where the talent expectation is lower. But others might not have as much in terms of musical activities at all. And so on.

So yes, as a general answer, demonstrated musical talent/dedication could be very helpful in some circumstances, but as usual it can be tricky to predict exactly which colleges will see it as helpful, but with some careful investigation you might shade the odds in your favor by choosing schools more likely to be looking for musicians like you to fill out their activities.

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I also don’t like it. Colleges with very low admission rates and with strongly holistic admissions look very positively on evidence of excellence. That can be in academics, sports, music, robotics, etc.

As a rule, high students achieve excellence through love of of the field or activity and investing of time and effort (and often money). Since all of these are limited, few high school students excel in more than one or two things.

“Spike” implies that a student dues a lot better on one or two things than on other things, and that is not something that is especially interesting in an application.

A student who does really well on multiple things is also attractive, even though they didn’t achieve excellence in any particular one. A students who is in the top 1% but not Valedictorian, built a debate club that did very well at regionals, is first clarinet in school orchestra, but has no external awards, and is a top dancer in the school’s dance troupe, isn’t attractive because they are “well rounded”, but because they show talents in multiple activities. Just engaging in all of those activities will not draw the eyes of an AO. Doing all of those activities and doing them pretty well, though, will attract positive attention.

Again, these colleges love to see Excellence and excellence can be either doing really really well in one or two things, but in can also be doing really well in multiple things. It depends on the student.

@e_w_13’s: your music accomplishments aren’t important because they are a “spike”, they are important because they demonstrate excellence, passion, and hard work. A “spike” just implies that you do an activity a lot better than you do other activities. What your music achievements show is that is that you do this activity better than most other musicians.

That is almost always the case when a student has serious achievements in any field or activity. This has an additional benefit in that no matter where you attend college, your achievement will never be diminished, and the joy that the activity and the achievements have given you and continue to give you is something that no decision by some random AO can take away.

So you should know that you are an awesome whether, whether college AOs appreciate it or not.

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Thank you! This is great.

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Hm, interesting. Not even as an accompanist?

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Being an accomplished accompanist is something that is very valuable in the music world, as is being an accomplished piano player. I would urge you to reach out to the colleges of choice and see if a music supplement is something they will accept. In addition, I would suggest reaching out to the music department chairs to see what opportunities there are for those who are not music majors. I know where my kids went to college, an accomplished collaborative pianist (accompanist) was in high demand. You might want to discuss this with someone in the music department.

And yes, this can be helpful with admissions, especially if national and international awards have been received, and your long term commitment to the instrument is demonstrated.

Very good luck to you!!

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