<p>Something I've commonly seen on CC is that people say "good EC's but nothing at the state/national level." What does this mean? Would being on a sports team that consistently competes at the national level count? Would editing for an international magazine count? How do people even define this, is it just a dumb term?</p>
<p>It’s just pretentious CC people who use those terms. Basically what that means is that you haven’t won any national tournaments or national games. So say if you are a basketball player, it doesn’t matter because you aren’t an all American basketball player</p>
<p>It usually refers to competitions/recognition. Someone’s Science Olympiad team made it to the state competition, or the debate team made it to the national competition. Or a student has performed with a well known symphonic orchestra when the orchestra performed nearby.Stuff like that. For elite colleges, this can make a difference in admissions because in theory it suggests a higher level of excellence.</p>
<p>The reason top tier schools care mostly about national level recognition is because it’s easy to say these are the “top” 100 or whatever students in this subject. It’s also easy to verify.</p>
<p>At state level, it’s already muddled because some states may have large populations, some may have small populations, and the level is not even.</p>
<p>At local level, it’s not really useful at all because it’s very difficult to ascertain the level of competitions and there are also so many of those winners. People may even make up those.</p>