<p>I've noticed that for privates like Stanford and Columbia you can sumbit "supplementary materials" to be considered with your application. I'd like to know how much these materials actually help. Obviously they probably won't make up for horrible grades, but do you think that if your grades, test scores, rec's, essays and ec's are competitive that something like an awesome jazz guitar supplement would get you in? I think there must be a big difference between listing an activity as an ec and actually showing that your talent with a supplement. </p>
<p>Thanks for any comments!</p>