<p>I am trying to decide what awards I should mention on my college applications. I have a couple of national awards. I figure I should mention my Chemistry Olympiads Honors award. I'm not so sure if I should list my 1st place award for math at Beta Club nationals because there are several Beta clubs, each with a national conference. </p>
<p>I am also trying to decide if I should list high school awards such as highest school-wide GPA in an honors and an AP class. I guess my overall GPA would be sufficient. I'm planning way ahead of the app. process, but I need to know now what is important. I'm a little OCD about what matters to colleges.</p>
<p>Any national-level awards, definitely include. State-level, too. First place awards are worth mentioning if they’re at least district-level or higher. </p>
<p>Highest GPA awards, honor roll, etc. are not worth mentioning. In fact, most school-level awards aren’t. They’ll see your high GPA on your application/resume already and don’t need to be told that your 4.0 GPA got you on the honor roll four times, as that’s obvious.</p>
<p>I tend to put a mix of awards, both in and out of school, although they are usually focused on one area (math b/c I have a lot of math awards at state and national level).</p>
<p>From top-to-bottom, I would start with national and international awards (you can definitely list Beta club, Chemistry Olympiad here). Further down, you can list awards at the regional/state level if they’re prestigious. For example, I listed “Student of the year” but not “3rd place in category at state Science Olympiad” or “AP Scholar.”</p>
<p>You may wish to put GPA aside from the awards section. Colleges usually ask for GPA/class rank in another section of the application.</p>
<p>Do not leave things like that off your college applications. You may explain it (I have no idea what a Beta club is), but do not omit that one.</p>
<p>Guidelines for omitting:
-Does not have meaning outside your school (some within your school will be okay. If you get a meaningless participation award, it’s not worth mentioning. On the other hand, if you win community service award for best character, do mention that. Your GPA awards seem like valedictory things? They’re probably covered in your overall GPA.)
-Necessary prerequisites for a higher award: “I got 3rd place in national debate!” means you don’t have to list the places you got at most of the tournaments you had to win to qualify for nationals.</p>