My daughter won an award in the Scholastic Art and Writing competitions, back in 8th grade. This is a well-known national competition and quite prestigious. At the time, she was told she could refer to it when applying to colleges. However her counselor in HS recently said no. Thoughts please?
If it is before high school, it should not be included in her extracurriculars or awards sections. She can, however, refer to it in essays (if it is relevant to the topic).
Unless it’s an Academy Award or the Nobel Peace prize, no. Even then, it might be iffy.
She was going to mention how she found a cure for,the common cold, but she didn’t want to brag.
If I won the National Spelling Bee, I’d put it down. Runner-up, not so much. If I proved a previously unsolvable theorem in Math or something, before HS, I’d put it on there, too.
Has she won any other national writing awards since then?
You can enter Scholastic throughout high school. If she hasn’t bothered–or has not done well since then–it’s less impressive. However, if she won “Best in Grade” or one of those more special awards, I’d probably include it.
You should not include 8th grade. Only high school. If there haven’t been other awards since 8th grade, then that is a negative, not a positive.
Perhaps an earlier success can be brought up in an essay, but only if that success led to something else that was important to further growth in high school.