<p>Does anyone know of any semi-prestigious contests/awards out there? Not anything like Intel or Siemens or USAMO, just ones that the slightly above average student would have a shot at.</p>
<p>Off the top of my head, I can think of the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Ayn Rand Institute's essay contests, and YoungArts. (They don't necessarily have to be writing contests, I'm just slightly more familiar with those.)</p>
<p>Aime and other semi final olympiads.</p>
<p>AFSA Essay Contest, DuPont Science Essay Contest</p>
<p>the only one I can think of is AMC (American Mathematics Competition).</p>
<p>Dunno what your definition of “slightly above average student” is, but semifinals for USNCO (as long as you get your teacher to proctor) and USABO are pretty reachable.</p>
<p>There’s also things like AP Scholar and NMS, I guess. Not sure about writing stuff. National History Day?</p>
<p>As long as you can write pretty well essays and get your point across, then you have a chance at the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) essay. Google it. This years topic is a choice of 6 diplomatic events in history and you have to ‘‘identify the issue, outline the diplomatic steps taken to address it, highlight the role played by the Foreign Service, and tell us why diplomacy matters then and today.’’ The winner will win a $2,500 cash prize, a paid trip to Washington, D.C. to meet the Secretary of State, and full tuition for a Semester at Sea voyage once they are in college.</p>
<p>I haven’t had a chance to look at the website yet, so how competitive is it and is there only one winner?</p>
<p>Just to give you an idea, last year’s winner won a Davidson for her work as well as a gold key at Scholastic Art/ Writing.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if AFSA has any runner up prizes or is it just first place. I really want to enter in some writing awards, not because it is my main extra curricular but because I have a strong passion for writing. The only way I can convey that is through winning writing contests. Can anyone recommend any good, reputable contests, except for scholastic?</p>
<p>I may be wrong, but I think AFSA is for US citizenship/perminant resident students only.</p>
<p>lol dude i live in new york ^</p>
<p>AFSA only has the first place winner prize.</p>
<p>Aw shucks. 
I’ll see whether to apply or not. Have to weigh out the marginal benefits vs the marginal costs. In the meantime, do you know of any other writing scholarships/contests?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>In terms of writing, Scholastic Art and Writing can be slightly above average… or very good. Gold/Silver Keys would be slightly above average, National Medals, I think, are impressive. Same goes for the visual arts section of Scholastic.</p>
<p>AIME looks cool if you can get >3 score. If you get a big zero on it, it might be a bit lackluster :P</p>
<p>National Science Bowl is VERY impressive, but only if you get to the national competitions. Regionals, depending on where you live, can range from easy to very tough. </p>
<p>Local music competitions are generally cool. If you wanted to, you could try for a contest like AFAF, which is a national music contest. </p>
<p>There’s also competition like USNCO and USABO. I don’t have firsthand experience, but getting into the semifinals should count as above average. Doing very well at the semis and getting into finals would, I assume, launch you into the impressive tier.</p>
<p>Obviously there are tons of stuff to do 
There are also multitudes of summer programs of ranging selectivity.</p>
<p>Wow. Thank you very much! Do you happen to know of any foreign language competitions?</p>
<p>Not sure about foreign language competitions, but I know of a few more writing ones. What do you write - poetry, short stories, etc.?</p>
<p>The Poetry Society hosts a pretty prestigious contest. Here’s a link to the winners last year: [The</a> Poetry Society (Foyle Young Poets of the Year)](<a href=“http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/fyp/#Commended_Poets]The”>http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/competitions/fyp/#Commended_Poets)</p>
<p>(“Dutch Baby” by Ian Burnette particularly strikes a chord in me.)</p>
<p>The Kenyon Review also has a short fiction contest every year: [The</a> Short Fiction Contest](<a href=“http://www.kenyonreview.org/contests/short-fiction/]The”>The Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest)</p>
<p>Then, of course, there’s NaNoWriMo, if you’re into writing full-blown novels.</p>
<p>Foreign Language Competitions:</p>
<p>If you’re really proficient in Chinese (like, GREAT at it), there’re contests held online by a couple of Chinese forums. Off the top of my head, I think the website wenxuecity hosted one this year. Still, you need to be really, really, REALLY good at Chinese. Alternatively, if you know someone who is proficient in Chinese, you could write something in English, and translate it into Chinese together.</p>
<p>There are definitely Spanish creative writing contests. I participated in one a couple of years ago, but I’m really sorry, I forgot its name. However, if you just type Spanish creative writing contest into Google, I’m sure you’ll get results. Also, you could try asking your Spanish (or any foreign language) teacher if they know anything.</p>
<p>Yeah the main types of writing I was looking for would be short essays in response to prompts, or maybe even personal memoirs, or even short stories I guess. Poetry is not really my thing, mostly because I’ve never really tried it, but I’ll probably give it a go for the scholastic key. My thoughts as of now was to try Scholastic, NCTE, and other little writing scholarships (that aren’t too well known). I was thinking of giving Davidson Fellow a go to (for an honorable mention maybe if I get lucky), but the problem is that I would do a portfolio on a free program I created,. The focus wouldn’t be on the community service aspect of the program but rather on the unique methods that I use to educate. I dont know if the davidson judges would still consider this community service though. What do you all think?</p>
<p>Also, yeah I was thinking along the lines of Spanish writing contests. In fact, do you know of ANY Spanish competitions apart from National Spanish Exam? </p>
<p>Thanks for all your help and the quick responses!</p>
<p>@Stormcloud - Lol, wenxuecity…I’m Chinese and my mom spends her life on that website. I think the contest is competitive because it’s aimed at people who know Chinese as a native language and can speak it fluently, but had to learn to read/write it. Most of those people are Chinese themselves and went to Chinese school for 5 or 6 years, starting around first grade. So in that sense, yes, it’s very competitive, as you’re competing against native speakers whose parents are Chinese.</p>
<p>@Sanjay - I know of a Spanish poetry contest…not sure if you’d like that, though, since you said you weren’t really into poetry.</p>