gery_sun,
If you are applying from a country that colleges see many international applications, I would think they’ll know the level of competition needed to get to the national level. They know that the Olympiad selection process is quite different in other countries. My son heard about folks competing in Olympiads from other countries who spent hours and hours each day practicing problems. For my son, it’s an extracurricular activity he does for fun and it has virtually nothing to do with school.
See if your guidance counselor (or whoever writes your recommendations) can help to explain that – the information may be worth including in your application package, but I don’t know that I would spend an essay talking about the qualification process unless it you got something profoundly personal and life-changing from it.
True, but it’s really only a great hook to have any medal (not necessarily gold) from an International Olympiad, rather than just making the national team. Among the many Olympiad team members I know who don’t make it to the international competition, a good majority arn’t selected to all (or even most) of the tippety-top schools they apply to (and they are all great students in every other respect, too).
Perhaps there’s a mentality that national team members -may not- have gotten there by hard work alone; indeed, there’s always the element of luck and (unfortunately) cheating. Making it to the Internationals and medaling thereafter would be convincing evidence against anything but one’s dedication to the subject.
kryptonsa36,
When you are among the top 12-20 in an Olympiad subject in the US, it’s a big deal. You’ll have to trust me on this one. Simply being in the top flight category (even before qualifying for the national finals) was enough to gather considerable interest and suggestions for tailoring apps at schools that know about these things and (obviously) value them.
As for your insinuation that people cheat or get lucky – that’s plain insulting. I know several national and international olympiad finalists/medalists and there ain’t no luck about it. One doesn’t need a medal to prove extraordinary competence and dedication to one’s area of study.
No, making the national finals isn’t a guarantee to a “tippety-top” school – assuming one would want to attend one in the first place. Not everyone is hung up on prestige. I never claimed making the finals was such a guarantee. But then again, a 2400 is no guarantee either.
Some people, kryptonsa, have things they value more than prestige, for perfectly good reasons. Some people know perfectly well what an education at a “prestigious” university would be like, and turn it down for reasons other than money, because <i>they believe they’ll get a better education elsewhere.</i> I have a couple dear friends who made decisions on those lines, and one of them was an international Olympiad medalist.
heck, even we olympiad medalists don’t have it all. my buddy and i both represented team USA at the ipho this year and we both medaled, and both of us got rejected from harvard (and both of us are rooming together next year at mit!) nothing is certain in college admissions. there are similar stories from the math olympiad, computer science olympiad, etc.
I think unless one has reached the national level for any of these olympiads, they don’t have any basis to judge others who have. It isn’t the medal that counts, but the years of work behind it. Sure these kids might not sometimes get into harvard or mit or wherever, but in a few years you’ll walk in and see their name on “XYZ Lab” in the halls of HYPSM.
“heck, even we olympiad medalists don’t have it all. my buddy and i both represented team USA at the ipho this year and we both medaled, and both of us got rejected from harvard (and both of us are rooming together next year at mit!) nothing is certain in college admissions. there are similar stories from the math olympiad, computer science olympiad, etc.”
-but didn’t you win your medal this year, as in after college decisions were made?
what about working at the national institutes of health? it says that only 20 percent get accepted, but i think fewer hs students actually do since college and grad students work there too.
I really don’t understand why Scholastic Art and Writing is ranked so high-- dozens of kids at my school win them every year. Also, why are things like high scores on the National Latin Exam so low? I think a perfect score for multiple years is pretty damn impressive.
