Is there even such a thing as Lead Flute? Totally clueless non-band playing parent, lol,
Son19 finished it up this morning. He decided to add a Volunteer as an activity and then he listed some stuff he helped out with. I don’t think it’s really going to make a difference one way or the other, but at least the AO will now he tried to help out once in a while. My son isn’t the kind of kid who volunteered 10,000 hours rocking babies to sleep at the Children’s Hospital. He volunteers every once in a while, so lumping them all together in one place looks OK.
I think he ended up listing 9 activities
Now we just need a final schedule and some LOR’s to come in.
Lead flute: Different bands call it different things, but “first chair flute” might be more widely recognized, even if that wasn’t the local title for it.
Speaking of which: My D19 has been second chair oboe for the regionwide auditioned youth orchestra all four years (including the coming one)—the first chair is in the same grade as her, and has merited it since freshman year (has her sights set on playing professionally). It is worth mentioning second chair on the Common App, or just say she played in it all four years?
“Principal Flute” should be appropriate to designate that a person is the first chair for the instrument. The only exception is for the violin, wherein the first chair is the “Concertmaster”.
@wisteria100 he was always going to include some volunteering on his app, he just wasn’t sure of the best approach. I think lumping them all together for him was the right thing to do. The person reading the app can look at the activity and then see the different groups he helped out with. He didn’t do anything extraordinary in terms of volunteering, so he just said offered his help at these organizations and then listed then out. Should be satisfactory.
@RightCoaster We lumped my son’s together as well. He’s at 7 activities…3 creative, 1 athletic, 2 work/entrepreneurial, 1 volunteer. It tells the picture of who he really is so we though OK, let’s be done with it.
IThanks @SwimmingDad , I think my son ended up with 3 athletic, 3 STEM activities, 1 work, 2 clubs of interest, and 1 volunteer category. He used up all 10 after all.
It’s too bad they don’t just give you a little more room to express the level of involvement in these activities. Or at least let you pick a couple that you can dive deeper on if you want, and for the rest have limited space.
I guess that’s why an interview may be a good idea in some cases, gives the kid a chance to talk more about what they’ve pursued and why in greater detail.
@rightcoaster Since your son didn’t have enough room in the activities field, he may want to create a resume. My D19 ended up submitting a resume to the colleges that had uploading a resume an option because she wanted more room to describe some of her activities than the space she was given in the activities section. Her resume didn’t have any new information, just more details. It didn’t take her too long to create once she had the activity section done.
Like @shuttlebus , S18 did the same thing. Uploading a 1 ph comprehensive resume is so much easier. All of the private schools he applied to allow for a resume except a couple, which he simply emailed the AO whom we personally met.
@shuttlebus a resume is a decent idea, my son17 did that and it was useful to describe some of his activities in more detail. I think what son19 might do is make a portfolio of some of the projects he has worked on through the years, a couple of the schools he is interested in let you do that. We’ll see.
I personally think a resume is a good idea. Some people do not feel that way. But I think more detail on certain parts of a kid’s application can’t hurt can can help an AO get a better understanding of what the kid was involved in.
The people that don’t feel a resume say that it just wastes an AO’s time because they have to review something else.
I say if the AO doesn’t feel like reading about it in depth they’ll just glance over it, no harm no foul. If they gain one helpful piece of info from reading it, then good for the kid submitting it.
So we’ll see. I’m not sure how much info to submit. One coach told us not to write the extra optional essays the school offers because the AO’s are so overworked and he doesn’t think it will help a recruit’s chances anyways. So maybe in certain cases less really is better
@rightcoaster said, " One coach told us not to write the extra optional essays the school offers because the AO’s are so overworked and he doesn’t think it will help a recruit’s chances anyways. So maybe in certain cases less really is better ."
This comment from the coach surprises me. I always thought that not completing the optional supplemental essays signaled to the college adcoms that you really weren’t that interested in the school. If the adcoms feel so overworked, it would be nice if they just completely eliminated the optional essays to help our kids from feeling so overworked, too.
^^^. I thought that was a weird a comment at first. The kids were happy to hear that, my son included After I thought about it a bit more it made sense though. The kids being recruited at this particular school need to have good grades, good test scores and be good athletes. Most kids that will end up there will have visited the campus at least a few times and one of the steps to admission is that every kid needs to do a sit down with admissions and have an interview. I guess this is their way of reviewing any issues and learning more about the kids, probably easier than reading another essay.
Saves them the time of reading essays too.
At most of the schools this has not been the case, and the kid better have a pretty compelling application and submit everything.
Outside of GPA and standardized test scores, all other components of the application are of significantly less importance. This is not to say that a stellar personal essay, unique ECs or other factors are unimportant, or that they cannot carry significant weight, but on the whole, grades and scores are the bar. It is for this reason that top recruits are very often not required to submit supplemental essays and other normally required information. For instance, S1 was a top recruit. Once his grades and scores met the bar, everything else was either just going through the motions (e.g., his personal essay and ECs), or not required at all (e.g., Subject SAT tests).
Played flute nonstop may have been a joke but a lot of folks peruse this page for guidance and examples and I’d hate for someone to take it seriously. Because truthfully the average 17 year old might write exactly that.
In fact, the example shown in the coalition app, which is set up a tad differently than the Common App for this section has a very poor example that isn’t much better than lead flute/played non stop!
