how much will an isef award help me in admissions?
It’s kind like being a recruited athlete. If a student’s research is truly extraordinary – meaning they are named as a semi-finalist in the ISEF competition – selective colleges will be VERY interested in that student. I imagine every student on this ISEF website was admitted to at least one top college on their list. It may not have been Harvard, but it could have been YPSM et al: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/education/competitions/international-science-and-engineering-fair/student-profiles.html
If you are an Intel ISEF finalist, there are 1700 of you so I’m not sure how impressive that is to top colleges. If you are one of the Grand or Special Award winners then it is a pretty big deal.
One boy I knew was a 3 time ISEF Finalist, 2 time NHD Finalist, had 3 published research papers, and won another national contest. Was flat-out rejected from Harvard, Vandy, Georgetown, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and 11 other places. In the end, got accepted to one Top 20 university.
It’s not THAT big of a deal nowadays (as in, it’s not a “hook”. Great accomplishment, yes. Guaranteed admission? Nope), especially with the amount of research programs available to high school students around the world. My country sends about 15 people to ISEF every year (5-6 end up winning a Grand/Special Award) but only 5 have ended up at HYPSM in the last 7 years or so…Five out of about 70. So yeah, it depends. How original was your research? A lot of finalists have attended programs where the research topic is basically given to them and they just carry out the steps. That is not as impressive as say, getting to ISEF with an idea you came up with and took 2-3 years to develop. It’s all subjective, OP.
Arabm2 Well competition is greater for international students.
Partynextdoor-That student must have had some red flags or something-maybe poor grades or maybe it was clear the student wasn’t really the originator of the reserach.
@lostaccount Asian-American Valedictorian with a 2180. Maybe a red flag somewhere else.
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