<p>I am thinking about if it is worth doing some competitions in January and February. If I have some huge accomplishments after the deadlines of college application, will colleges take them into considerations?</p>
<p>I participated some math and science competitions but not doing very well this year (junior), so I'm thinking about preparing for them in this year and try again next year. But if my accomplishments are not going to be seen by colleges, I will somewhat lose some motivation. </p>
<p>So I want to know whether or not accomplishments in the second semester of senior year will be taken into considerations by colleges.</p>
<p>It may help if you got deferred. Mid year school transcripts are usually available in Feb and it helps in many situation.</p>
<p>@billcsho so if I got deferred, I can add more materials?</p>
<p>Yeah, you can definitely send an update letter after you submit your app. Any major awards you receive will help your application, but even if they’re at the local level, it never hurt to demonstrate a little bit more interest. If you apply EA/ED and are deferred, sending in a letter of continued interest can help as well.</p>
<p>Good luck! </p>
<p>Some schools have an option on their “portal” to upload documents, resumes, and any other relevant information up to two weeks before decisions come out -Caltech is one such example. However there are other schools that seem to abhor reading anything more than the bare minimum -Stanford for example instructs applicants not to send any additional information. By all means send an update letter to all the schools you applied to, but know that only some schools will take it into consideration. </p>
<p>Also remember to put our name, DOB, and Common App ID on the top of everything you fax or mail in. With the high volume of applicants admissions officers are liable to throw out things that they can’t easily put in your file. </p>
<p>You should definitely do this. My kid sent an update to all of her regular decision schools in late February via email. Brief, but said she wanted to let them know about a few accomplishments since sending in her application and she hoped they could be considered as part of her admissions decision. And she did put the DOB & an id # in her email (in most cases I think the school had assigned her a number when she applied, they gave it to her when they sent the portal information for checking status that most schools have). Or you could put the common app id # in. Just to make sure they can easily match the info with your file.</p>
<p>My D had finished 3rd in our state in an academic competition and 5th in the state in an individual athletic competition. She also had a minor change in her academic schedule that meant her transcript would not match the class list in the common app, so she also mentioned that. So those are the types of things you can put in. </p>
<p>But you want to keep it concise and factual, they appreciate that during admissions season! My kid got in everyplace she applied (including U of Chicago, Swarthmore, and Harvey Mudd), so I sure don’t think it hurt her to do this, and may have given her a boost in admissions and merit (where it was available).</p>