I am thinking about participating topcoder’s SRMs (a competitive programming online platform) and use my rating as one of the application’s ECs but my counselor says the admission officer may question the status and the credibility of the platform, Topcoder, since the admission officer might be unfamiliar with competitive programming. But Topcoder is truly one of the best and most credible platforms in the field of Competitive Programming and many ACMers use this website to practice a lot too. Personally, I think I can explain Topcoder in my common app but my counselor still thinks it’s better for me to participate a robot competition that is somewhat famous and get a solid certificate rather than the rating on a website. So could this be a problem? or my counselor thinks too much? Does the admission officers really only ignore those terms that they are not familiar with rather than researching, at least a bit?
In addition, I really doubted about the robot competition, its hosted by FIRA Youth, and some random small organizations. Do you guys hear about it before? About the FIRA Youth? (Ignore the other small organizations for now)
Thanks in advance for answering!