For major accomplishments in MS, If you have 10 good activities already leave it off. If not then throw it on. It won’t hurt.
I would not put middle school DI awards on. Here is how I think of it: Colleges want to know what kind of young adult you will be in campus. What you do in the last couple years of HS far outweighs any earlier accomplishments. They care about your trajectory going into the next four years. The “glory days” of middle school are meaningless.
You may use the additional info section if you really want to include them on your application.
^ So monitoring your local bluebird count is worthy of including as an EC for colleges, but putting thousands of hours of training into an activity and winning awards at the national level, with external sponsorship, is not? I think I’m missing something here.
Being the 1st chair of your school orchestra in 9th grade means relatively little. Previous experience and training are obviously implied, but the level of ability is widely variable. Performing at Carnegie Hall in middle school is an entirely different matter.
I think selected middle school stuff could be included simply by indicating the number of years and I wouldn’t bother to mention it unless it’s a serious EC at high school level as well. I wouldn’t use a separate listing for it, that will make it look like filler and leave them wondering why you haven’t done 10 things worth listing in high school.
I don’t think DI Global finals as a kid is really something to wow colleges. Seems like there is a team or two around here making that every year. And it would probably leave them wondering why if it was so important to him, he didn’t participate in or organize a team at the hs level?
@hdess27 Was the scholarship won in middle school but used for HS? If so, then you could indicate that you are “X foundation scholar” or something like that.
^^^ The scholarship won in middle school($5,000) is specifically designated to be used towards college.
It is the volume of hatching over 250 birds over a period of time that made it worth listing. And my kid did put a lot of time into it in high school. Only the high school hours were actually listed. The MS time wasn’t listed as a separate activity or anything. I think the way she did it was create activity called “Bluebird Trail”, and then bulleted out in the additional activity section the 4H awards (including ribbons at the state fair) for her bluebird related projects, the participation in the Cornell Nestwatch tracking project throughout high school, and then a bullet for the number of birds hatched over the period of time. If she had hatched 250 birds in middle school with no HS activity, it wouldn’t have gone on the list at all. Not sure if she would have even listed the trail monitoring as a HS activity if she didn’t have the 4H projects and the Nestwatch data collection work, either. But because the metric of number of birds hatched over 10 years fit as a bullet with the rest of the narrative, she included it.
If you don’t keep up in the sport or maintain the external sponsorship into high school, then no… I don’t think colleges would really care. Students are really very different human beings at 18 than they are at 10 or 12. And so many middle school kids are either pushed into their activities by “stage” or “sports” parents, or are competing in what is reality a very small stage because there are very few competitors in their age group. If the kid burns out or fails to succeed at a high level once they reach 9th grade, then I am not sure it is even beneficial to point that out to colleges. An elite college admissions officer might say, “Really? That’s what you’ve got for me – middle school accomplishments?” And if they have continued to soar, then the HS accomplishments speak for themselves.
@intparent While I agree with most of what you are saying, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances as well. My S placed 2nd in state last year(8th grade) for science olympiad. The school could not afford to compete at the national level so that was as far as he could go personally. This year(9th grade) his high school does not participate in science olympiad. While he does continue working in STEM he doesn’t have an opportunity to compete now at a national level.
But it’s 8th grade. Intparent is right, they want to know how a kid made choices and committed in high school. It’s not a bio, it’s an app. A good example is they don’t ask for your ms academic transcript.
I wouldn’t put DI awards on the Common Application. If I were writing an essay about my favorite EC (a question when my youngest tackled it) I might have a line about how I’ve enjoyed creative opened end like activities since being part of a successful middle school team. My older son might conceivably have written a line about the excitement of working on math as a team in Mathcounts, but it would be in the context of math activities he did in high school. (He didn’t, but with the right sort of essay you might start there.) An essay about what ballet means to you might begin with a memory of the first time you put on toe shoes, but the bulk of the essay should be about your high school self. Middle School is ancient history - or it should be!
^ But if you do HS level academics in middle school for credit, it’s relevant. Similarly, if you are doing HS level ECs (or above), it’s relevant. The kid who has played a dozen Carnegie Hall recitals since 6th grade shouldn’t be obliged to list only those done since 9th grade; they are all relevant to the cumulative impact of that EC. Mathcounts isn’t very relevant, but there are kids who make USAJMO in middle school and go on to IMO; their USAJMO experience is relevant. It’s part of their “narrative”, and belongs on their application. These are exceptions - I fully agree that in most cases middle school ECs aren’t relevant; but equally, in those cases where they are, they should be included.
Carnegie Hall isn’t a given. There are people and orgs that rent space. For fun: http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/07/31/157671080/how-do-you-get-to-carnegie-hall-no-seriously
Kids don’t put middle school academics on their apps. For some activities we already said or showed you can include some past start in the line with the present accomplishment. If she did well in USAMO in hs, fine, she can say she placed since 6th. But the Common App only includes little bullets for 9 10 11 12 and PG.
This isn’t about pushing and pressing, some, “But I was a superstar x years ago.” You don’t get into Harvard or Stanford now because you were special.
^ No, I never said it was that. Activities that aren’t continued don’t matter, fabricated/exaggerated activities or accomplishments don’t count (nor should they count if they are done in HS), and obviously more recent ones are better. But there are legitimate cases where it’s relevant. “Special” doesn’t automatically start in 9th grade.
I personally think an EC should be listed only if it’s immediately relevant to an activity done in high school, or nationally recognized.
As another question, what would placing 1st and winning national awards in middle school, then placing 2nd or 3rd in high school show? Would it be wise to place both on an app?
But college CARE about the special that starts in 9th grade. If your kid is THAT special, they are still having great accomplishments in high school. It does NOT matter if you were #1 in the world at something at age 12, IMHO. If you didn’t accomplish much between 13 and 17, and want to come to my college, I want to know that you are still pushing forward and not resting on those laurels. That is old news… like putting your HS GPA or SAT score on your resume after college.
@intparent Are there any high school achievements that you WOULD leave on a resume after college? Like perhaps “Valedictorian” or “National Merit Scholar” ?
I definitely wouldn’t put valedictorian or NMS on a resume post college. I might put something like intel finalist or 1st place in junior olympics though.
It would depend on the circumstances, and I think that’s what most of the “pro MS activity” crowd is saying. Not that it’s a given that it goes on, but that it’s not a given that it doesn’t.
A lot of my friends who went into consulting were asked that. I was asked that on several applications to MD/PhD programs.
My NMF doesn’t have it on her resume even for REUs in college. Maybe Intel finalist or gold medal world team on something like USABO if you were doing a science CV.
Regarding SAT scores, yes, some companies do ask for it on their applications (I was asked by consulting companies back in the 80s for this). And I think it is still asked for by some companies. So have it handy if you are filling out apps, but I would not put it on the resume. No one ever asked for my HS GPA, though. College GPA is asked for sometimes.
You don’t even leave much college accomplishment on the resume once you are in the working world. Phi Beta Kappa would be one that I’d keep for good. And of course research experience or internships that are relevant, until you have enough “real” world stuff to drop them. GPA if it is good for a little while, but after a couple of years it isn’t relevant.