Major Extracurricular Activities and Awards, Ranked by Prestige

Applying to College
1

This has been posted before; the original thread is by smder99. However, I added a lot of competitions and EC’s, as well as standardized the formatting. It was such a good list I felt it deserved to be cleaned up and revived. Hope this is helpful!

If you have an edit, please copy-past the entire list, make the changes, and then include a note stating what you changed.

Rank 10:
*Division 1 athlete
*IMO/IPHO/ICHO/IBO medals
*Intel Science Talent Search Top 10
*Siemens National Winner
*Intel ISEF Top 3 Grand Prize
*Published in Nature, Science, or similarly rigorous journal
*Carnegie Hall Soloist

Rank 9:
*Siemens Finalist
*Intel ISEF Best in Category
*MOP
*Intel STS Finalist
*NFL Nationals winner
*Research Science Institute (RSI)

Rank 8:
*TASP
*USPhO/USChO/USABO/USACO National Finalist
*Siemens Semifinalists
*Intel STS Semifinalist
*Intel ISEF 1st – 4th place Category Award
*Published in a respectable journal or publishing house
*Starting a successful business
*AMC Perfect Score
*Presidential Scholar
*Davidson Fellow
*Presidential Scholar of the Arts
*Scholastic Art & Writing Portfolio, Gold Award

Rank 7:
*Selective summer programs (EX: SSP, Clark Summer Program, NIH Research, MITES)
*Having a patent
*Intel ISEF special award
*USAMO qualification
*ARML Tiebreaker Round/Top Team
*Scholastic Art & Writing National Silver or Gold Medal
*NFL Nationals qualifier
*Appearance on Jeopardy
*USAMTS Gold Medal
*MATHCOUNTS top 12 sprint/countdown round
*State AP Scholar (note: as a junior or prior)

Rank 6:
*Columbia Scholastic Press Crown
*USPhO/USChO/USABO/USACO Semifinalist
*Intel ISEF Finalist
*Science Olympiad National medal
*USAMTS Silver
*MATHCOUNTS Nationals
*First Robotics National Championship
*State Athletic Championship
*Science Bowl/Ocean Science Bowl/NAQT winners

Rank 5:
*Columbia Scholastic Press Medalist (if Editor-in-Chief, 5; if Editor, 4; if other staff, 3)
*Mock Trial State Champion (depends on state)
*National Latin Convention 1st Places Academic Contests
*All-Eastern/All-Regional music
*National History Day winner
*Congressional Award Gold Medalist
*AIME qualification
*Science Bowl national qualification
*National AP Scholar (note: as a junior or prior)
*Class President
*President of a large, academic, serious club (EX: MUN, Mock Trial, Science Olympiad)

Rank 4:
*National Latin Exam perfect score (multiple years)
*The majority of state-level awards
*All-State music
*Science Olympiad state medals (depending on which state)
*National History Day
*JETS TEAMS National Finalist or Regional winner
*Model United Nations Best Delegate Gavel
*1st Place State-level Debate
*AMC 10/12 school winner
*Congressional Award Silver Medalist
*Eagle Scout
*President of a smaller/less serious club
*Student Council position

Rank 3:
*All-County music
*Winning (1st–3rd place) at regional science fairs
*1st Place Regional-level Debate
*National Merit Scholar
*Rensselaer Medalist
*Leadership in an academic club (EX: Vice President, Treasurer)

Rank 2:
*Bank of America Awards
*The majority of local awards
*Essay Contests
*State History Day
*Membership in a club (that requires some work)

Rank 1:
*National Honor Society
*Beta Club
*School Departmental Awards (EX: math dept. award)
*Book awards (EX: Harvard book award)
*School Honor Roll
*Key Club
*CSF
*Interact Club

Rank 0:
*Who’s Who
*National Honor Roll
*National Society of High School Scholars

1 Like
2

why is it important that we have these rankings and what use does it have?

3

Not to take away credit for the work done on this, but it really is just unnecessary. Just do what you want and do it the most and best you can. Prestige seeking is annoying and takes away the fun of going to college. If you’re a young reader and you really want to be an IMO/IBO medalist etc. don’t waste hours of youth with your face in a biology book if all you care about is prestige and looking good. Only do it if you’re one of those few people who for some reason really enjoy that.

1 Like
4

I agree that these rankings are somewhat pointless. A strict ranking also ignores the cumulative effect of multiple related awards, or of synergy. Some are also just plain silly (e.g., a AMC perfect score having more impact than USAMO qualification; and I doubt an appearance on Jeopardy has much impact on adcoms).

5

What would you say about the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio?

6

Nobel Prize :wink:

7

Don’t know about equating 1st place in state-level debate with being president of a “smaller/less serious club.”

The mention of NSHSS at the very bottom of the pile, however, brought a smile to my face. If you were to create a -1 category (“Awards indicating a gullibility that seriously damages admission odds”) I’d favor its inclusion.

8

Things like this just causes stress among high school students. Seriously, anything from five or six onward reveals an impressive student.

Rank ordering them changes the focus immediately from following your own interests to a prestige chase. The people I know who received top national academic awards or were on international teams did these things because they were truly interested. If they were just going for prestige, they wouldn’t have gotten that far.

9

Being class president is usually a popularity contest. I don’t think it is anything at all compared to the awards in rank 5.

10

@NotVerySmart

This sounds like a great idea. This stuff only works though if it’s put on the application

Rank -1:
-NSHSS
-Anime Club
-Video Game Club

Rank -2:
-Middle school awards
-Pay to get in summer programs (No requirements)
-Atheism club
-Internet culture club
-State standardized test scores (like the FCAT in Florida or EOCs)

Rank -3:
-Any drug/marijuana enthusiasts club
-Mensa membership combined with low GPA
-College Confidential moderator
-4chan moderator (Riskiest essay ever?)
-Online IQ test results

This is fun, we need more ideas for the list.

11

Anime and video game clubs shouldn’t necessarily be a negative - these are two art forms that can be discussed very intelligently, if one so chooses. The issue being that some people choose not to.

I would imagine none of the CC mods are college applicants at this point in life.

A few more ideas:

Self-published book: Rank 1

Member of a high-IQ society: (Subtract 100 from the society’s average IQ. Divide by 20 to find rank)

Member of Anonymous: subtract one rank per 100,000 views for your latest video

Picketing for the Westboro Baptist Church: Rank -10, or +10 for applicants to Bob Jones or Liberty University.

12

@Alundari Making MATHCOUNTS top 12 nationally would technically be considered a “middle school award”… just saying.

Also I don’t know if I even understand the point of these rankings - many pairs of achievements are incomparable, and you shouldn’t compare yourself unfavorably to an international medalist, especially if in a different field.

13

There is a big difference between recognition as an individual versus as a team. Individual recognition gets a lot more points.

There are far fewer kids achieving above level 4, I think 5 levels above this is too many. I would do 7 levels total (could even do 5 or 6 and condense the whole thing).

Rank 7: extraordinary and rare individual talent at a national and international level

Rank 6: extraordinary achievement and talent at a national level, in some categories can be part of a team

Rank 5: Superb individual excellence at a regional level, some categories that involve more unique talent it can be excellence at the state level

Rank 4: high level of excellence and commitment/excellence at the state level - better as an individual but can be part of a group or team in some categories

Rank 3: significant leadership in school/regional recognition/recognized excellence (this is where I would put class president, newspaper editor, etc)

Rank 2: Above average school leadership and involvement in school

Rank 1: Participation and engagement in activities at the school level, but does not involve leadership

Rank 0: sign your name

14

Getting papers published in top shelf journals all the way to lay person’s newspapers. Various levels within different sports. Various levels within different Olympiads.

15

I’d give an appearance on jeopardy 1000 points if it were up to me. Long live Alex Trebek.

1 Like
16

Why would Mathcounts be on this list? It’s a middle school program. And like Science Olympiad you can’t make it to States or Nationals unless the whole team is strong.

In any event I know lots of kids who have gotten into HYP etc with only Level 4 or 5 accomplishments.

17

Thanks a lot for compiling this information. It was very helpful for me as a soon-to-be a high school student. Ignore some of pointless comments above.

18

How “successful” does a successful business have to be? How valuable, for instance, is starting a small local business (in a unique field strongly related to one’s other interests) that profits on the order of $10k/year?

19

Why is class president ranked so high? In my experience, it is almost always a popularity contest

20

No matter what activity you do, you determine its “rank” by the amount of effort and time you put in. Useless to list activities by ranks like this.