<p>Apoc314 - you’re so lucky you have chem olympiads and stuff at your school. Our school has science bowl teams, which seems really fun (I have friends on it), but I would have loved to see subject-specific teams like that.</p>
<p>USABO cutoff is 29.</p>
<p>These aren’t subject-specific teams. These olympiads are all individual tests. But yes, a lot of schools don’t even know about these so I’m grateful that our school registers for most of the olympiads.</p>
<p>The closest thing I have to any sort of olympiad is that AMC test. I think someone from my school got to the second round two years ago …</p>
<p>As should be obvious by now, my school is pretty sucky. Oh, and we’re currently part of this big scandal going on.</p>
<p>oh damn, i really hope i got it. i think i did lol? it was so much easier than last year.</p>
<p>What scandal? Lol. The AMC leads to the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) which then leads to the USA Math Olympiad test, which leads to the International Math Olympiad. So the AMC is very good to lead to the next levels of the math olympiad.</p>
<p>our school only does AMC…no bio or chem olympiad stuff. im really sad…apoc ur so lucky u get to do these.</p>
<p>Now you’re making me feel guilty for having these opportunities, lol. But did you try to get your school to register for those olympiads? For USNCO, you could have tried to get your school to register, and if that failed, then you could have emailed the ACS local section coordinator directly. I believe that you could also have taken the Bio Open Exam at another registered high school nearby as well. It’s too late for this year, but if you’re a junior you can still do them for fun next year (if you can get your school to register or if you contact the coordinators). Oh well…Best of luck getting into Clark Scholars then.</p>
<p>yeah, i registered our school for usabo. and our local acs coordinator does usnco</p>
<p>USPHO Semi-Finalist here.</p>
<p>“Oh well…Best of luck getting into Clark Scholars then.”</p>
<p>apoc, r u saying that im not getting into clarks? hahahaha. ur right though considering how my stats don’t compare to some of u guys’. oh welll…</p>
<p>should we update them with stuff?</p>
<p>Ah, I see. Yeah, our school has the AMC and History Day, and a lot of math-related competitions but not any of the tests you mentioned.</p>
<p>Do you guys think that research experience/science fair would help our apps or that they’d want to give the opportunity to someone who hasn’t had research experience?</p>
<p>Yes - definitely send updates. I sent my first update in early April last year with around 6 new awards, and a second update in late April with another award.</p>
<p>Prior research experience is neither an advantage nor disadvantage - it depends on what you learned from it :)</p>
<p>Wow. The only update I’ll be sending is my SAT score. I’m taking it Saturday … ugh. Is it just me, or has life been excessively busy for the past six weeks?</p>
<p>^ oh damn. i’ve never even heard of these things. why doesn’t my school know ANYTHING?!</p>
<p>My kid’s school didn’t know about USABO, either. She learned about it somewhere out here, I think. She asked her bio teacher to register the school, and I paid the $75 fee (and would have been okay with anyone else taking the test if they wanted to, since that fee covers as many testers as the school wants to have, but no one did). So you can probably do that next year.</p>
<p>Our school competes in environmental science competitions, and I think we win a lot. I’m not really sure what else … there was supposed to be a history competition but I think that got canceled due to lack of interest.</p>
<p>Actually, our school is so apathetic about anything other than alcohol-, sex-, and drug-ridden parties that the only two dances that aren’t canceled every year are homecoming and prom. It also doesn’t help that we’re the suckiest high school in the district (we also happen to have the least East Asian people … lol). To top it off, we had that scandal I mentioned earlier (but if I elaborated, it would give away my school’s name, and I value my privacy). Let’s just say it attracted national attention, despite being less serious than a coach having consensual sex with a student in another high school of my district.</p>
<p>Man, I should have put something about overcoming these obstacles in my essay.</p>
<p>chaseholl - I’m taking the SAT this Saturday too, and definitely, it’s been a CRAZY past couple of weeks. As an IB’er and with a lot of competitions going on, I’m just wiped out and can’t wait for spring break.</p>
<p>“Oh well…Best of luck getting into Clark Scholars then.”</p>
<p>swirlz, I didn’t mean it like that. I simply meant that since your school didn’t have those USABO and USNCO opportunities and since it is too late to do anything about them this year that I was just wishing you the best of luck for Clark since you couldn’t compete in the other olympiads mentioned above. Sorry for the ambiguous message.</p>