<p>Just wondering if you think that this competition would help someone with a bad GPA give a little boost for admissions? I'm not doing the competitions just for college (it really is interesting and I want to be a bio major. It also provides valuable opportunity for research) but I was curious.</p>
<p>This is to previous competitors, in either competition (ISEF or STS) do you guys feel like the ones who actually win (finalist STS or top 3 in ISEF) are never in the plant sciences category? Because I want to do regarding plants because I have a really good idea, but I'm not sure if it even has potential.</p>
<p>It’s extremely difficult to do well in these competitions. I’ve been doing research on the caliber of project submitted, because I myself have a project in the works, and you’d be surprised by the high level some of the students are at. To some extent, I cannot believe these kids wrote everything themselves, though. </p>
<p>Yes, but I come from a school that gets numerous semi-finalists and finalists every year. I have a good mentorship connection. I’m more concerned if picking plant sciences is a bad option in the first place. They don’t seem to know as they’re always doing molecular sciences or clinical.</p>
<p>Well plant sciences isn’t something out of the ordinary (as ISEF dedicates a full category to just that subject) I just feel like in comparison to Medical Research on cancer, plant sciences just don’t win :(</p>
<p>I guess i’m just curious to any competitors if ANY type of category really has potential to get first? Or is it mostly something that’s a serious concern like cancer? I mean plant sciences could change our agricultural industry and psychology could revolutionize the way we study people. But I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t feel like judges think the same way…?</p>
<p>Well any category has the chance to win, but if I were you I wouldn’t go into it with that mindset. Do the project because you find plant sciences fascinating. If you do it that way, you’ll end up having more fun and ultimately having an all-around better experience.
Of course, winning is nice, but in the end, when you’re out of grad school or wherever it is you want to go, winning Intel won’t get you too much. What will stay with you forever are the countless hours spent on the kinks needed to be worked out and the trials and re-trials that need to be done.</p>
<p>A girl won the Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge (now called Broadcom Masters) with a plant science project several years ago. My take is that any category can win - though I admit that without looking at the actual numbers it does seem that math and high-end medical projects win more often.</p>