How to link art ECs to STEM major?

Applying to College
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I’m interested in a science or engineer major, specifically chemical engineering or maybe public health. I know it’s not required that your ecs have to be related to your chosen major. But is it required or recommended to link your ecs to your chosen major? If so, how?

Besides three or four (excluding work), most of my ecs are related to art. I was in:

-Theatre class with out-of-school hours performances

-Drama club with several performances, art club with participation in an art exhibit/competition in my state

-Currently in a summer art program that will show my art and my participation online and in-person with the possibility of someone buying my art

-I’ve been posting art online for over a decade (my two older accounts are still up and no longer being used but I’m still active on my recent one).

-Though it’s not confirmed, I’m also expecting to be put into dance class that will have live performances and will be my art club for my last year with the expectation of doing the art exhibit/comp again.

How can I connect this to my major? Or am I over thinking this?

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You don’t need to connect it to your major! My daughter was a chemical engineering major in college and most of her EC’s in high school were music or theater related. It’s totally OK! If anything it makes you more well-rounded.

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Drawing & architecture seem related.

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Your ECs are outstanding and you need to do nothing.

However, there is connection. You are creative, part of a team, innovative - great skills/character for any major.

Lots of people do sports, band, the arts, working at Dunkin Donuts. All are good. Most have no direct connection to a major. Many schools don’t even look at ECs.

But yours are great. If you love them, it’s wonderful as is.

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Edit: Drama club and art club are different.
-Drama club with several performances
-Art club with participation in an art exhibit/competition in my state

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My stem kid was accepted to all programs they applied to with NO stem ecs. All ecs were music, writing, and foriegn language related. This actually helped get a math scholarship that liked well rounded students with some music ecs.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

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I agree, there IS a connection, but you don’t need to link it yourself.

People in tough STEM majors and tracks often do art things. Sometimes it is because there are actually overlapping aptitudes. Sometimes they want something totally different to do for fun mental breaks. Whatever the reasons, though, this is very common, including among successful STEM students at the most selective colleges.

I think those colleges know this, and embrace it. So if this is a big part of your life which you can balance with STEM academic interests–awesome, that is a great thing to be taking with you into college. And I think selective colleges will automatically see it the same way, no explanation needed.

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It’s interesting to see these responses. They differ from advice I have read and personally been given by IECs.

Now, if the question is whether you really need STEM EC’s to be admitted to a STEM program, then I agree the answer is no.

But if the question is whether your application is better if you can present a cohesive picture of yourself, then I believe the answer is yes. It is just easier for the AO to remember you and your activities if you can tie it together.

How could you tie your art and interest in chemistry together?
Chemistry is behind pigments, dyes, ceramics, and glazes after all. If true, you could highlight curiosity about how certain materials behave—why oil paint dries differently than acrylic, or how glass is made.

Or can you make some art that visually represents a STEM theme?

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Don’t. That’s how. Art and engineering and music and engineering go together just fine. Not everything has to relate perfectly. Just be yourself and you do you. Your GPA and scores with rigorous classes stand out more than anything else for most schools.

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Sorry. Don’t agree. I get what you are saying though but it feels forced and it will also to the AO. Not everything needs to fit perfectly in a puzzle. If anything it makes the applicant more interesting not less interesting.

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Personally, I hope you are right. But, if so, what explains the fact that IEC’s give the advice to tie your interests together and present a cohesive story? The advice, while inconvenient, resonates in part because it does seem like the spikier kid does better at the highly rejective schools compared to the generalist.
I am genuinely interested in your thoughts.

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Sorry if this comes across as cynical, but IECs need some way to add value, and I’ve noticed that they often claim this is a way they add value (by tying together things into a narrative and curating a kid’s ECs).

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There’s lots of schools that won’t even look at the ECs. We don’t know the students list.

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I am :wink:… IECs need to make money also. Let’s do some passion projects, let’s brand you, etc. There is nothing wrong with either. You want to stand out somehow. It’s getting more difficult with schools accepting 100,000 applications or is it?

In this case both dance and art can be rhythmic and mathematical. As an example engineering on North campus at Michigan is on campus with both dance and art majors. Coincidental??

Some schools want students to do well in their passions /interests. Dance takes a lot of commitment and persistence. So does Art if you want to get good and excel in it and yep,so does engineering /stem.

The AOs know this.

Read MIT applying sideways. It might open your eyes. Good luck.

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I recently noted on another thread, that while I see this info coming from paid counselors, I have attended a number of college admission sessions and have never seen one mention the need for cohesiveness when they talk about ECs. Of course, I haven’t seen every college out there, but the ones I did all seemed to focus on depth and passion (iow, doing what you want to do and not because it will look good on a resume) when they spoke about ECs. They also want to know how you will add to student life at a college…different interests make people more interesting in that sense. Btw, My older daughter got into a T30 ish with basically 2, deep ECs, neither of which had anything to do with her proposed major.

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If all students did, the schools would be full of robotic/identical students, not individuals.

And in reality, most any EC can be tied to any major - responsibility, teamwork, interact with others, meeting deadlines etc.

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And AOs know this. You don’t need to spin a yarn around it.

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OP - if you are interested in a different perspective, there is a student who did some in depth videos on her application choices. Her ECs were primarily in ceramics but she wanted to study physics. She talks about how she branded herself in her application by combining these two. She ended up going to MIT but had many other amazing acceptances as well.
Google on YouTube - Eva smerekanych

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So my primary source of information on subjects like this is actual AOs, followed by people who have worked as AOs who are not trying to market themselves.

What they say suggests to me that what I would call an elevator pitch might well help. Basically, you can imagine a reader telling an admissions committee, “OK, I think we should strongly consider this one, because . . . .” And what completes that thought might benefit from being succinct, something easily stated and understood without a lot of explanation or elaboration.

Where I think many people go wrong is in believing that elevator pitch has to be academic in nature, or one-dimensional. Indeed, from what I have seen, AOs might particularly value interesting and uncommon combinations.

So, an elevator pitch could be, “this is a woman interested in engineering with top STEM grades and test scores, but her teachers also say she is one of the most kind, friendly, and helpful students they have ever had.” That is the sort of pitch I think could actually get an applicant admitted to MIT, Stanford, and so on.

Or, “this guy really loves math and Physics, but he was also captain of the LAX team, and on top of that also reads and writes French poetry.” That is also an elevator pitch I think could take you far.

Like others, I am a little cynical about why more paid consultants don’t talk like this. I think a basic issue is lots of parents who might hire them don’t think like this, and have not been guiding their kid’s education and development along these lines. And so if a consultant basically told them, “You have college admissions all wrong, you have not encouraged your kid to develop the right personal characteristics, you have not let them find genuine interests,” and so on, they probably won’t get hired.

Anyway, bottom line is I am confident that AOs for highly selective colleges very much care about personal characteristics and value interesting combinations of academic and non-academic interests. And if your kid is already heading in that direction naturally, I think it is a terrible idea to try to force them into what is ultimately a much narrower and less interesting box, just because non-AOs say that is what AOs secretly want, but refuse–for some unknown reason–to confess in public.

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I also want to add that many honors colleges want to have people who are interested in interdisciplinary thinking and expanding their knowledge base. Colleges also know that kids change their major. Few people know what they want to do for a career at 17/18. You will be exposed to new ideas and topics that may become your passion over the first year or two of college. Being your authenic self is much better than being contrived.

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