Anonymous wrote:Not only is his volunteering much more impressive than just being another concert pianist, but doing the competitions is one of the most effective ways to kill his love of music and his self-confidence.

This. He will quickly prove his amateur status when he runs headlong into tons of players who have been competing and performing for a decade already. That ship has sailed by 16. He can do amateur music but will not cut it as a professional competitor. Your DH had the right idea but is way too late. But you don’t have to be the messenger. Sign him up for a few competitions and your DH will quickly understand where his kid sits in the ultra competitive world of music performance.

I think it’s too late to consider competitions. This is a competivie area and he will be competing with kids who are, in addition to being naturally gifted, are passionate and dedicated and have their sights on Julliard, Curtis, Eastman, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I NEED A PIANO TEACHER! if DS wants a paying job, and you live near Potomac, lemme know................

No

Not what you asked but I was a music major and hate the competition thing. It has ruined music instruction. I feel like artists should play for the joy and the creativity not to win a prize. It seems like there are so many more competitions these days, fed by parents desiring to pay their kid’s way to the top and generate a college admissions advantage. Maybe I’m just old school, but I absolutely hate the competition mentality.

Essay could be about why he chose to spend time and energy on lessons over competitions. Not just what he gained from it, but why it’s important.

Anonymous wrote:I think at 16, it's probably too late tobget competition ready kids who compete and place in competitions don't have hobby level amount of practice. Your son is likely very talented and skilled, but it takes a serious commitment to place at competitions, especially on an instrument as popular as piano. I have a violinist who is now more hobbyist, but she put in hours of practice a day and finally got an honorable mention after several entries. She would practice 2 hours a day most days, less during sport. She did not practice intensely as a younger kid, and she often just couldn't compete against kids who had been practicing 2+ hours a day since age 8. So, if you kid has consistently practiced 1+ hours every and has a top level teacher, it might be possible, but he would probably need to amp up to 2-3 hours per day just to try to place, and there are so many kids with piano competitions. Not sure it would be worth it.

However, what he does with his piano sounds fantastic. It tells about who he is in relation to piano. On Common App, I would include an EC entry for playing (practice, etc) and a volunteer entry for the time he spends teaching and playing at the retirement place.

This. My daughter is like your son. She plays purely for the joy of it. Her teacher has competition kids who practice 2-3 hours a day, year round, and some of them never win anything significant. Music is a lifelong pleasure; don’t kill his joy for what will probably end up as nothing.

You have a better chance at a piano scholarship than a math scholarship

I think at 16, it's probably too late tobget competition ready kids who compete and place in competitions don't have hobby level amount of practice. Your son is likely very talented and skilled, but it takes a serious commitment to place at competitions, especially on an instrument as popular as piano. I have a violinist who is now more hobbyist, but she put in hours of practice a day and finally got an honorable mention after several entries. She would practice 2 hours a day most days, less during sport. She did not practice intensely as a younger kid, and she often just couldn't compete against kids who had been practicing 2+ hours a day since age 8. So, if you kid has consistently practiced 1+ hours every and has a top level teacher, it might be possible, but he would probably need to amp up to 2-3 hours per day just to try to place, and there are so many kids with piano competitions. Not sure it would be worth it.

However, what he does with his piano sounds fantastic. It tells about who he is in relation to piano. On Common App, I would include an EC entry for playing (practice, etc) and a volunteer entry for the time he spends teaching and playing at the retirement place.

I think the answer depends upon 1. how good your son is and 2.how much time is he going to have to spend preparing and competing.

If he does enter some competitions, how well is he likely to do in them? Just entering is unlikely to boost his admissions chances. I don't mean he has to place first in an international competition, but there are a heck of a lot of good pianists out there and coming in 15th in a state wide competition is unlikely to help. If he's likely to be in the top 3, that's different. I mean it would be better to be the winner of an international competition, of course, but it might help some to be top 3 in a state.

How much time is he going to have to devote to preparing and competing? If realistically, he's going to have to spend 4 hours a day for 6 months preparing and spend 5 weekend days a month competing, I think it's a non-starter. If there's some lcompetition he can enter via video for the initial round, maybe it's worth spending an hour doing it and seeing what happens.

At least some colleges accept music supplements from non-music majors and what the music faculty thinks of the submission generally matters more than the results of competitions. See this link for info re submitting a music supplement to MIT. https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/supplemental_materials/ Others colleges do not accept them; Carnegie Mellon is one such..

If you're son is a genuinely talented musician, it might be worth while to ask the schools he is interested in if they recommend submitting musical supplements.

Another factor to keep in mind....math and musical abilities are often paired. So, musical ECs are fairly common among math majors, which is probably part of the reason MIT has so many student musical groups.

If your son has a high AIME score and competed in ARML or whatever the current competition is, that will help a lot more.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where does you DH hope your son goes to college? Where do you hope your son goes to college? Where does your son want to go to college?

His choice of extracurriculars is unlikely to make a difference (or at least you can't predict how they might matter). But your whole debate here seems like it's a likely precursor to disagreements about his college path more generally.

He will be applying to top engineering schools, DH and I are your typical pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps types. As long as he gets into a good engineering college, we are fine. We do not care for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown etc, partly also because they are top choices for would be engineering students.

I just asked because I hear a lot of noise about these things, in reality it won’t factor in much I suppose.To be fair to DH has only mentioned it to DS 1 or two times, DH has discussed with me but he doesn’t as such like to put too much pressure on DS. This question was more for my curiosity.

Sounds like you and your DH have a plan. What about your son?

Oh, this is his plan, he hopes to get into a good engineering school. We want what’s best for our child of course.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where does you DH hope your son goes to college? Where do you hope your son goes to college? Where does your son want to go to college?

His choice of extracurriculars is unlikely to make a difference (or at least you can't predict how they might matter). But your whole debate here seems like it's a likely precursor to disagreements about his college path more generally.

He will be applying to top engineering schools, DH and I are your typical pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps types. As long as he gets into a good engineering college, we are fine. We do not care for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown etc, partly also because they are top choices for would be engineering students.

I just asked because I hear a lot of noise about these things, in reality it won’t factor in much I suppose.To be fair to DH has only mentioned it to DS 1 or two times, DH has discussed with me but he doesn’t as such like to put too much pressure on DS. This question was more for my curiosity.

Sounds like you and your DH have a plan. What about your son?

^not to choices

Anonymous wrote:Where does you DH hope your son goes to college? Where do you hope your son goes to college? Where does your son want to go to college?

His choice of extracurriculars is unlikely to make a difference (or at least you can't predict how they might matter). But your whole debate here seems like it's a likely precursor to disagreements about his college path more generally.

He will be applying to top engineering schools, DH and I are your typical pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps types. As long as he gets into a good engineering college, we are fine. We do not care for Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown etc, partly also because they are top choices for would be engineering students.

I just asked because I hear a lot of noise about these things, in reality it won’t factor in much I suppose.To be fair to DH has only mentioned it to DS 1 or two times, DH has discussed with me but he doesn’t as such like to put too much pressure on DS. This question was more for my curiosity.

Where does you DH hope your son goes to college? Where do you hope your son goes to college? Where does your son want to go to college?

His choice of extracurriculars is unlikely to make a difference (or at least you can't predict how they might matter). But your whole debate here seems like it's a likely precursor to disagreements about his college path more generally.

It’s important to understand the college process is unpredictable. It’s not worth doing competitions only for sake of applications. Read on here about kids that have done everything right and then some, yet still rejected by competitive schools.