<p>Yes, it’s legit, though not always appreciated. My son worked on the a mod for Civilisation 4 that was named the best mod in Gaming Magazine. We had no idea until we were putting together his resume senior year. His school had a computer club, but he was way beyond anything they did. We did encourage our son to find a couple of school based ECs - he likes competitions so he did Science Olympiad and Academic Team - the rest of his time (and there was a lot of it) he messed around on computers. </p>
<p>We found a summer school class in programming computer graphics for gaming at Columbia’s summer school one year, the other years he worked for a company that produces websites. He also did some programming work for a couple of med school professors. (He has a connection through his father.) Ultimately my son decided graphics and games was not his area of interest, but many of the colleges we looked at have gaming majors. </p>
<p>I recommend networking and seeing if you can find some way for your son to put his talents to use in addition to the things he’s doing now. Perhaps the school website could be updated and made more interactive? Perhaps you know someone who needs some programming skills?</p>
<p>In addition to the schools listed above, RPI offers a gaming/graphics major. Our son also applied to WPI, though I can’t remember if they have a more gaming/graphics oriented major as he ended up in straight computer science.</p>
<p>(And BTW, I do know some girls who are also interested in gaming.)</p>