Hey guys, I just had a college interview and my interviewer asked if I’ve ever been to a hackathon or some sort of STEM competition. He looked disappointed when I said I didn’t. Is it important to go to those types of events if I want to major in computer science?
Well to be honest, the majority of engineering applications at least do robotics or something. If you interviewed at Mit or Harvey Mudd, most applicants probably competed in some STEM competitions. If it’s some state school, it probably wont matter.
You’ll be fine as long as you have some cs-related extracurriculars 
I’m not sure what school the interview was for, be my D has two friends that were accepted into decent (not top tier like MIT or HM) without any robotics or STEM competitions, neither of which were offered at her high school or in our general area.
Not necessarily a hackathon but they would like to see some sort of STEM competition…Math Olympiad, Science Olympiad, TSA, Robotics etc…
There are some online things like USACO if you are already programming.
My kiddo was admitted to multiple top ten Comp Eng schools and she never did hackathons or robotics. Her main EC was a sport and she coded and adminned a website in her free time.
The interviewer may have been disappointed because he thought it might be a topic of conversation for the interview, not because he thought you needed it for admissions.
Okay thank you all!