<p>Extraciriculars:
-Have been taking guitar lessons for 8 years now
-Recorded a solo acoustic guitar album (with no singing) at my guitar teachers place
-Wrote + Illustrated a short book on playing the guitar for beginners
-Taught a few less fortunate children the guitar in my local community (once every other week during Junior year)
-Played guitar at school masses (2 years)
-Went to 5 week Luthier School which teaches you how to make guitars from scratch (summer)
-Built two guitars outside of Luthier School…sent one to a troop in Iraq and sold the other and put the profits towards a children’s hospital I used to go to(2 years)
-Submitted one of my guitars to art competition + won honorable mention
-Drawing won honorable mention at Monmouth County Art Fair
-Arister(3 years)
-Contributed artwork to a local journal(2 years)
-Attended small art school over summer
-Engineering Internship at T&M Associates (Summer)
-Electronics Developers Camp (4 days over Summer)
-Math Pre-Calculus Honors Summer Course
-Math Team (2 years)
-Eagle Scout + returning Assistant Scout Master (6 years)
-Local Christian Youth Organization + Guardian of Life Award (4 years)
-Worked in Bag Room at a golf club (5 years)
-Caddy (3 years)
-Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) group at school (3 years)
-member of National Honors Society (NHS)
-member of Spanish Honors Society
-Scholars Program at school (2 year selective program at school where students learn about a country and then visit the country Senior Year. I went to Russia.)</p>
<p>Comments:
I understand that the essay and recommendation letters have a significant sway in the eyes of an admissions officer but this is what I have in terms of academics and extraciriculars.
I’m especially interested in math and the guitar. If you have any ideas that you think might interest me and that fit the theme of my application then I’d love to hear them.</p>
<p>In reality, almost everyone applying REA has equal academic and extracurricular qualifications, of which you meet. But you really need to set yourself apart with your essays–make them deep and personal.</p>
<p>For an engineering applicant, I would think your Math II should be at 800, or very close to that. Science SAT IIs are on the low side too. These are worth a retake, in my opinion.</p>
<p>I think with HYPMS, most applicants need to be in the top 1-5% of their class. Reason being, you WILL be compared across your school and region. So if you are in the top 15%, imagine if I am an admission officer…I am probably looking at the the top 10 folks from your school who will apply to Stanford and will have stellar academics AND steller ECs. Unfortunately that is the reality. Guitar is a good EC, but might not be as compelling as someone who is a varsity sport captain, band/section leader, school president and all that.</p>
<p>I disagree. The guitar is better than being a varsity sport captian because everyone can be a varsity sport captain (kinda, not trying to put that down). Being a captian is commonplace but your whole guitar thing is different. And different is very good. You always want to have something no one else has. Don’t get me wrong if you can be captain of a varsity sport too, than all the more power to you, but don’t give up on guitar.</p>
<p>I disagree with Dungareedoll. It is true that different is good, but it really depends on the level of the difference. Being a captain of a varsity sport could be the top of the playing field for a sports player, but OP’s guitar achievement so far isn’t nearly comparable to being a captain of a varsity team.</p>
<p>The bottomline is that everything a student does is important. I can only speak from my experience. When S was going through this process, we hired a college counselor who was able to sit in on a Stanford review application committee. She was very confident that she understood what they look for. Although, she would always remind us that things change from one year to the next. </p>
<p>S wasn’t a superstar with perfect scores on everything but he was very well rounded and his main EC was something that she felt was fairly uncommon. She was pretty confident that it was going to help him immensely. At the end of the day, he applied to 13 schools and got into all 13. He beat out the valedictorian, and Saludatorian. He was ranked 8 of 600+ students. No one in his school was as successful at the college application process as him. So I can’t help but think that the college counselor was right. Hence thats why I always pass down that bit of advice. I’m sure we could debate it but for me it worked 13 times.:)</p>
<p>^keep in mind that all the top colleges are consists of regular well rounded students. I would imagine that’s what made up 90 percent of Stanford. I would say that your son is just plain lucky to get in all 13 (assuming most schools are schools similar to Stanford, Harvard,Yale,Princeton etc.), did something truely unique among anyone else or the level of competitiveness isn’t as intense as today’s.</p>
<p>Today, more and more kids with 2200+ sat on their hand are focusing on their ECs, you wouldn’t believe some of things those people have done. The competitiveness of college admission today is insane so although doing great EC can get you into Stanford (like what Stanford is mainly consist of), it certainly cannot guarantee spot.</p>
<p>^^^If lucky means he worked his butt off for years than I guess your right. For what its worth my S is a freshman at Stanford, so its not like I’m speaking of an experience that happened years ago, when things were different.</p>
<p>"^keep in mind that all the top colleges are consists of regular well rounded students. I would imagine that’s what made up 90 percent of Stanford. "</p>
<p>I just know from researching that Stanford does not look for “a class of well rounded students” but a “well rounded class.” So that is why I hope that Stanford does not overlook the guitar as a valuable EC.</p>
<p>dvgoff: You’re right about that. Although as a whole, regardless if its Stanford or ABC University they all want well rounded students. But thats why I was saying its good to have something like guitar as your ec. Its different. Schools don’t want a class of 500 varsity captains. The bad thing about being a varsity captain, if thats your BIG EC, is that its commonplace. The schools can easily obtain varsity captains. But an EC with regard to the guitar is different. The schools all want to boast that they have something no one else has. So once again, I think you are wise to try and captialize on your guitar ec.</p>
<p>to add to the varsity sport captain vs. your guitar interest debate,</p>
<p>I definitely think that the time and effort that you’ve put into guitar as displayed by the accomplishments you’ve listed are as worthy if not more worthy than being a varsity sport captain.</p>