I’ve been in Mu Alpha Theta and competed on the math team (grades 9-12, only 10 kids get selected out of 500+) and I’ve won a few (3-4) local/regional competitions. Nothing crazy like USAMO or AMC. I also do some tutoring.
So my question is, is this worth for me to put? I know it won’t help my app much, but will it hurt me by making me look more stereotypical/Asian? A lot of my ECs are very strong and I don’t want to seem like an average “well-rounded kid” who does all the typical ECs (quiz bowl, math team, science club, charity clubs, Honor societies, etc.) For reference, I’m targeting mainly top 25 schools.
My S is Asian. He was the co-capitan of his HS math team. He did it for fun and was not really into competitive math and had no USAMO or AMC. He was more into college math and took 3 math courses from our state flagship university. Overall, his profile is more about music/piano than about math.
On Duke’s acceptance letter, the admission officer said that they liked his music and math; whereas on a few other acceptance letters, the other admission officers acknowledged his music and said nothing about math.
Hope this helps. I think it is very nice that you are doing tutoring. Good luck!
Yes, put it in. It doesn’t make you “look more stereotypical/Asian.”
@prof2dad Thats awesome! Congrats on raising what seems like an amazing son.
Just like your S, I love piano, I’ve been playing ever since I was six. That’s probably the biggest part of my app, I’m even thinking writing my essay on it. I’ve composed music, set up my own concerts at the veteran’s home, and I’m currently building my own personal website. A lot of my compositions actually are very therapeutic (for the veteran’s, since a lot of them are old age/alzheimer’s/dementia). Anyways, thanks so much for your input, it’s very helpful!
Put it on your app. Usually, when it comes to EC’s, colleges will only look at stuff that will help and won’t care about the rest, so it wouldn’t hurt.
It would also show your interest and willingness to go out of your way to learn more about mathematics, especially since you seem to be fairly involved with it too.
The only thing I suggest you leave out of your app is like if you were “part of” a club but you actually only went to like 2 meetings and you didn’t really do anything.
@CoolestAsian Totally agree with you on that! Speaking of learning more, I also took Stanford’s Machine Learning course so that’s a plus too 