<p>Do I use it if I want to continue my art in college/university or as something to increase my chances of getting accepted to some of my choice universities(eg. princeton, stanford, UCLA etc). So basically is it for people that want to continue and major in arts or just to increase your chances?</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, it depends on the school. One school my S is applying to only wants an arts supplement for students planning to major in the arts. Another school he is applying to requested it if the applicant has significant participation in the arts, as a way for them to get to know the applicant better.</p>
<p>Involvement in the arts has been S’s main EC. He hopes to continue participating, but does not plan to major in the arts. He submitted an arts supplement for the second school, but not the first.</p>
<p>thank you for your reply… if you don’t mind, what school or at least what type of school were these? Also if I have a passion for art but may not be “the best of the best” at it would it still e advised to submit the optional arts supplement? Would it increase my chances of getting in just for showing my passion?</p>
<p>Absolutely!!! Colleges do care about your passions.</p>
<p>You have to look at each school’s application requirements and optional supplements. Schools at all levels of “prestige” may or may not want an art supplement.</p>
<p>If you have a decent portfolio, you can either put in on a disk or send some actual prints of the artwork, and send to each school that will consider them as part of the whole student.</p>
<p>ok so it doesn’t matter if you are amazing or not… only if you have a passion? How would this work in decisions? wouldn’t they rather accept someone with a nicer portfolio? Also i’ve been looking at some supplements online and I think that I come up to par with them but with the more competitive universities there is always tougher competition.</p>
<p>As college_query has stated, it depends on the college or university. Based on the schools my daughter is interested in it seems that most of them expect that someone submitting an Arts Supplement (at least for music) will be involved in the activity (music) in college, being part of the orchestra for example. But, I have not seen any college where this is actually required. </p>
<p>For example, Stanford, one of the schools you mention, states “While we would like students with a vested interest in the arts to continue their participation at the collegiate level, an arts submission neither guarantees nor commits a student to participate in the arts at Stanford if admitted, nor does non-submission preclude such participation.” I think that Princeton has a similar expectation. I do not think that UCLA accepts Art Supplements, at least not with respect to music.</p>
<p>Such materials may be submitted, but you should do so only if you have unusual talent. Students with truly exceptional talents or achievements may send music recordings, slides of artwork, or selected samples of academic work for the consideration of the Admissions Committee. At the discretion of the Admissions Committee, such submissions may be evaluated by faculty.-- This is from the Harvard website. It says UNUSUAL talents so i am sure that there will be quite some competition</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your replies!! I really appreciate it :)</p>
<p>Sending in a supp, just to show its your “passion?”. It has to be good enough to impress or they can wonder about your judgment. Some schools won’t look at any non-required supp material. Some, if they already like your app, will have a faculty person review it. See the catch?
“Passion” doesn’t get you ahead in admissions as much as past performance and potential to thrive at that school and make some contribution. For top schools, instead of passion, we should use the terms drive and focus. If you think your work is solid, that’s one thing. Forget just sending in something because you think passion counts. Good luck.</p>
<p>Yes i see where you are coming from. This makes sense. thanks!</p>
<p>To answer your question in #3, the school he submitted the arts supplement to is a selective LAC. The school he did not submit an arts supplement to is a highly regarded selective public university where he is out of state but a legacy.</p>
<p>Last night our church had a talent show. No audition, if you wanted to participate, you could. We had everything from a tone-deaf junior high student to a professional musician. We applauded every act, but there wasn’t actual talent displayed in the first instance. I would agree that passion isn’t necessarily enough. </p>
<p>How competitive is your environment? While S does not plan to major in his art, he has won regional competitions, does well at auditions, etc. I think he’s good enough that he shows actual talent and we hope the arts supplement helps him. </p>
<p>S also plays tennis. He’s been on varsity since his freshman year and does okay but not great (wins some tournaments, but not good enough to win regional or state awards). We don’t think his talents in that area are enough to warrant an athletic supplement.</p>
<p>ok ya thanks…I have won some national and international competitions for art and will soon have the opportunity to show at a county art exhibit so i will probably be thinking about sending one in. For the athletic supplement, i do taekwondo and i have some good titles but i dont think the university will accept it because they dont offer the sport competitively right?</p>
<p>yummycookie, if you have won some national level competitions or earn prestigious recognition for your art, you should definitely submit. The taekwondo seems overkill, until you want to show that you are broadly smart, artistic, and athletic. Make sure your overall application is focused on how you want to represent yourself … don’t spray a bunch of disconnected ECs into different supplements, select one that represents you best to complement the rest of your application.</p>
<p>Ok thanks…the thing is that i won those titles a couple of years ago in middle school and they have discontinued the competition. will they still recognize these titles?</p>
<p>hey i know its been a while but i wanted to see if anybody could answer the question in my previous post?</p>
<p>bumpity bump!</p>
<p>Not sure the answer - for academic/ECs, only high school work is counted. However, I suppose if someone won the National Geography Bee or National Spelling Bee, which is only through middle school, that would be worthy of mention in a college application.</p>
<p>I guess it depends on how prestigious this was - if it was a really big deal, then maybe, but if not, I would not mention it.</p>
<p>thanks! ya i will talk to my counselor to see if it is worth mentioning… it was for an international company and was only open to relatives of the employees but would that still be a big deal? i dont know how many entrees there were but there were entrees from Qatar and all sorts of places so there must have been a lot.</p>