<p>I'm new here, and rather inexperienced in the field of college admissions, so I'd appreciate it greatly if someone could explain how important Olympiad achievements are.</p>
<p>For instance, could someone who made semifinals in Bio and Physics automatically have a good chance to get in top tier schools, if his/her GPA was 4.0, and took 8ish APs, and had 800 on the important SAT IIs (Bio, Physics, Math, Chem)?</p>
<p>Automatically? No.
But high achievement in academic (such as 4.0GPA, 8APs), high score on SAT and SAT II, and great EC certainly are essential to compete against thousands of many other high achievers.</p>
<p>You don’t really need to ask this question. Ec allows you to explore future career option and interest. EC is great for college admission.
Olympiad is fun and achievement from it is great.</p>