<p>stemit, thanks for the insight. do most of the rejected applicants with distinguished awards have one thing in common perhaps - not well-rounded? or the storyboarding is not coherent in colleges’ view? do you have to have a theme (passion?) in the application and all academic and extracurricular activities center around it? and perhaps this is the best way to value prop (borrowing a term from my consulting career) to colleges? EC in community service is indeed very important - an area he needs to focus on. </p>
<p>happymomof1, unfortunately, i am pretty sure my household incoming level prohibits us from 99% of scholarships. my home state (MA) public universities are not that great either so we still focus on top tier private schools. Thanks for your answer.</p>