Is playing at Carnegie Hall a significant EC for BS/MD?

Cherrylips
Sat, 22 Nov 2014 20:17:43 +0000

This is a question my friend wanted me to ask the CC community, specifically those looking into BS/MD programs.

Here’s what she told me: She has an okay SAT score in the low 2200s, and her main ECs are playing violin, doing some research over summer, science bowl, and some local clubs she’s started up on really random things. It’s actually kind of funny–she has a club dedicated to anime, which is probably not going on her application though.

Her concerns are that the research she did was strictly over the summer (7 weeks I believe) and the way she explained it to me, it seemed more like standard lab work than research. She has no shadowing and very limited (time-wise) hospital volunteer experience. She wants to know if playing at Carnegie Hall as part of a youth orchestra would be able to compensate for not having these standard BS/MD ECs.

She’s applying to a wide range of programs from PLME to UConn to Baylor.

Edit: my friend also wants to know if playing at Carnegie Hall is still an impressive achievement. For the orchestra she played in, you have to audition for a spot and then pay close to $5000 for the experience if selected, so she’s worried that colleges might write it off as a “pay and play” kind of thing.