what about… other awards in music, such as state, regional (northeast, southeast… yada yada), and national competitions?
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know any of the bio or chem National Team Olympiad Members? You hardly hear about them and I was wondering if there are any schools with dominance over these selections.
what about language awards? i saw something about latin convention on here, but what about scores on nat’l language exams? gold awards for latin, and being nationally ranked for spanish?
What about being published in a nationally recognized magazine?
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cali7820000, my bad, I meant eagle scout to be either 6 or 7. I forgot we gave 9s the highest and 1s the lowest.
If they are really top prestigious awards, you won’t get them unless you already had a natural talent in that field. Starting now to get one of these awards is like you trying to be an olympic athlete.
Kyzan: In short, yes.
Not sure about USNCO, but I know 4 USABO people on this board (including 2 medal winners at International). So I’m sure each Olympiad is going to be represented by at least one person on CC.
10 - D1 athlete, IMO/IPHO/ICHO/IBO gold medals, Intel (top 10), Siemens National Winner/National Finalists, ISEF top 3 Grand Prize
9 - ISEF(1st places), Siemens Westinghouse (finalists), MOP, Intel Finalist, Presidential Scholar
8 - TASP/RSI, USPhO, USChO, USABO, USAMO, USACO, Siemens Semi-finalists/ISEF(2-4 places), Intel semifinalist, Scholastic Writing and Art, Presidential Scholar candidate
7 - other selective summer programs or competitions, such as YES, SSP, Clark Scholarships, HCSSiM, Perfect SAT scores (because many people get them anyway)
6 - National Merit Finalist, National AP Scholar AFTER Junior Year
5 - National Latin Convention 1st Places Academic Contests, All-Eastern/all-regional music
4- Perfect Score (Multiple Years) on National Latin Exam, or other language, AP Scholar, some state awards (all-state music, etc), science olympiad medals (depending on what state you’re from)
3 - All-County music, winning at local/regional science fairs
2 - Bank of America Awards, most local awards/trophies (art, music, community - although they will say something about your character), Essay Contests
1 - National Honor Society, Beta Club, School Departmental Awards, School Honor Roll
0 - Who’s Who, National Honor Roll
… anything else?
Hey, for those who entered the Scholastic Writing and Art Awards… were you supposed to get a confirmation email or anything, saying that they received your entry?
(sorry for being semi-off-topic…)
where would you put AP National Scholar
and LEAD summer program
I say 7 for the former and 8 for the latter
this based on where I know current LEAD alumni are attending school and their great success
In my opinion, Presidential Scholar is 8 or 7, not 9.
How is the Presidential Scholar Candidate higher than a perfect SAT? You can be a Presidential Scholar Candidate and not have perfect SATs. I’m also going to move down selective summer programs such as SSP, YES etc because they have less impact on admissions than perfect SATs. If you look at statistics, HPYSM usually 50 percent of perfect SAT scorers while less than 50 percent of SSPs or YES alumi get into HYPSM.
10 - D1 athlete, IMO/IPHO/ICHO/IBO gold medals, Intel (top 10), Siemens National Winner/National Finalists, ISEF top 3 Grand Prize
9 - ISEF(1st places), Siemens Westinghouse (finalists), MOP, Intel Finalist, Presidential Scholar
8 - TASP/RSI, USPhO, USChO, USABO, USAMO, USACO, Siemens Semi-finalists/ISEF(2-4 places), Intel semifinalist, Scholastic Writing and Art
7 - Perfect SAT scores
6 - Selective summer programs or competitions, such as SSP, Clark Summer Program
5 - National Latin Convention 1st Places Academic Contests, All-Eastern/all-regional music, National Merit Finalist, National AP Scholar AFTER Junior Year
4- Perfect Score (Multiple Years) on National Latin Exam, or other languages, AP Scholar, some state awards (all-state music, etc), science olympiad medals (depending on what state you’re from)
3 - All-County music, winning at local/regional science fairs
2 - Bank of America Awards, most local awards/trophies (art, music, community - although they will say something about your character), Essay Contests
1 - National Honor Society, Beta Club, School Departmental Awards, School Honor Roll
0 - Who’s Who, National Honor Roll
I also moved down NMSF and AP National Scholar because there are too many of these students to have any significant prestige or impact on college admissions
I agree with the comment about Presidential Scholar definitely not being a 9. It’s probably not even a 7, if you want to distinguish between perfect scores and PS. And I still think Siemens/Intel SEMIfinalists needs to be moved down; there are hundreds upon hundreds of people with this distinction, and I firsthand know a couple who don’t even stand a chance at Cornell, let alone the most selective of schools, which I would hope 8+ insinuates a very-above-average chance at.
Where would you put qualifying for the training camps for the international olympiads? 9? I’d also move perfect scores lower, coz after colleges see that your scores are above a certain threshold indicating that you can survive at a particular university, they basically disregard them. I’ve that for all intents and purposes a 2250 and a 2400 are the same. One last thing. I’d change gold medals at international olympiads to any kind of medal because merely getting to that level will make you a very enticing candidate.
I’d 'd say anything 8 and above can be used as a “hook”. What do you guys think?
I do believe that some other summer programs are pretty prestigious. Like SSP for example. If you look at the program description, over 50% get into ivies, mit, stanford, berkeley. Just… fyi
But they’re not good because they help you get into college. You’re good if you get into those programs. It’s like, getting into Princeton won’t help you get into Harvard. If you get into both, it’ll be because your grades and scores and everything were good enough. It’s not like Harvard will see that you got into Princeton and go “well, I guess we’d better admit her/him, too!”
Yeah, but that’s not the point of the thread. If the argument against these camps is that the students from these camps don’t generally get into top colleges, then i’m saying the contrapositive is true. 
haha sry. too much logic this wkend.
Freshman?
I thought that the point of this thread was to list everything (in terms of prestige) that influences college. Being a D1 althlete helps. Winning the scholastic art/writing competition helps. Getting a perfect score on the National Latin exam helps.
Tasp doesn’t. It’s a highly respected program, but if there are two kids with equal grades, scores, and ec’s, and one went to Tasp and the other one took some college classes at UPenn, the TASPer won’t have an advantage over the other one.
^^ I dunno the validity of that claim, but there seems to be a general correlation between TASPers and competitive colleges. Although correlation does not prove causation, no one really knows what the case might be.
Funny sidetrack: Today, my boys state interviewer told me the exact opposite scenario of what Purpoisepal stated. I thought it was funny, cause he said how if two people have the exact same resumes, colleges will pick the one with boys state on it. In the real world, where would you two people with the same resumes?