This February Ill be applying in a team event at a regional competition that qualifies me if I win for Intel ISEF. I was wondering is this equivalent of USAMO. There’s no question about it math is very important in life, but can it be that colleges value research more. I have a great cancer experiment planned and ready to be proposed in front of the judges!
Also I am really passionate about science: I tripled up on sciences this year, my junior year, Physics 1/2, Chem, Bio all APS. And I love conducting research as a means to learn and engage myself. I do love math but it doesnt intrigue me at all and im not very good at it beside being in Calc BC as a junior with an A. i cant think logical enough to pass aime.
Anyways I mostly care how important is Intel Finalist to colleges? i dont really care about getting into harvard or stanford, (my standardized scores suck anyways)… just top tier 2 (Johns Hopkins, Rice, Ann Arbor, UCB)
No, not in this one person’s opinion (not equivalent to USAMO).
While I wouldn’t say resarch has ‘jumped the shark’ in college admissions, I believe it doesn’t have the same ‘wow’ factor it used to.
Two main factors why:
much more common for students in race-to-nowhere geographic regions to have some sort of ‘research’ on their apps these days
impossible in most cases to determine how much adult-influence contributed to said ‘research’ (just look at the parental occupations, when available, of all these high school researchers)
Last I checked, one has to “pass” the AIME to move on to the USAMO.
That said, most admissions staffers don’t want to be played. They want to see what you are truly excited about, and where you willingly put your efforts. Do what excites you and ignites your passions.
If you score well on the AMC, great! AIME moves more towards proof-based and maybe that’s not your ‘thing’. Just do your thing!