<p>I personally think USABO and MOSP should be higher:</p>
<ol>
<li>Every international olympiad (in other words, on the USA team)</li>
<li>STS (finalist and top ten to be above isef 1st or higher)</li>
<li>ISEF (1st place or higher to be above siemens national finalist)</li>
<li>Siemens (must be national finalist to be above #5- U.S. teams)</li>
<li>MOP Participant, US Physics Team, USNCO Finalist (chem olympiad), USABO Finalist, USACO (informatics)</li>
<li>RSI</li>
</ol>
<p>Btw, do you think that making the physics team sounds better simply because of the "Member of the USA Physics team" as compared to just "USABO finalist", etc?</p>
<p>while the process of writing a scientific paper took significantly longer, with many many revisions, than for a college essay, the writing came much easier to me for some reason, but that could be because I had already read many papers in the same field and had acquired some of the language.</p>
<p>Yeah but if you're going to write a real paper and publish it (I don't mean just a paper for STS or something, but something that will be printed in a peer-reviewed journal), the writing has to be at such a high standard that it makes the entire writing process very difficult. A college essay, you just let your own personality flow through, it's not nearly as lengthy or difficult a process.</p>
<p>haha aright i guess we were talking about two different things. I agree that published papers do have to conform to a very high standard of writing, but it also depends on the impact factor of the journal. I've read some pretty shoddy papers from some journals. Since the only scientific paper I have written was for Siemens, that's what I was basing my argument off of, but yea, my mentor said that papers can take up to a year to write at times.</p>
<p>Ooh, ok. Got it ;) Yeah, I'm currently experiencing firsthand how difficult writing a real journal for publication can be (and have been experiencing it for almost a year now, lol), so it's frustrating, a bit :p The Siemens paper took me a month and Intel took a few more weeks of a little revising. That paper will be torn to shreds and reassembled in a technical article form hopefully for publication sometime in the next year :p</p>
<p>Yeah writing for publication is definitely much harder than one 500 word college essay. I have a bad habit of researching as long as I can, and all three papers I've written (SWC 2004, SWC 2005, STS) were all done within 48 hours of the mailing, with the slight exception that for STS I had my rudimentary RSI paper done so the sections/format was already set up (saves 6-8 hours of work I guess).</p>
<p>foolonthehill, you're saying that you need to be top 10 STS to be better than ISEF 1st place? I disagree; I think that STS top 40 > ISEF 1st place, since there are often more than one first place winner in each category.</p>
<p>And Adam, I have just submitted for publication and I'll find out in mid to late January. I am submitting again early January with newer stuff since I was deferred EA and I need some good things to add to my applicaiton.</p>
<p>zogoto, I used the previous person's format and didn't change anything he had written about the science research competitions. I just wanted to say that I felt USABO and MOSP should be on the same level as USNCO and the other olympiad camps. =)</p>
<p>This is borderline pointless, arguing about which research opportunity has the most merit. It's way too subjective. Besides, you're leaving out a few I know of (and one I did). How can we lambast Harvard's prestige factor while at the same time weigh how the prestige of certain research should tip the scales of admission in a specific candiates favor. Give it a rest, por favor!</p>
<p>Oh, lol, I forgot about that. It's pretty solid - the problem with the list monster I apparently created is that a list would have to be incredibly detailed to really document what's better and what's worse. For instance, USAMO is better than ISEF, but is just qualifying for USAMO better than getting one of the top three awards at ISEF? Probably not.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yeah but I would think that regardless of the award, doing so well on the APs would stand out in your app anyway.
[/quote]
The difference is that the Siemens award isn't just based on your scaled (1-5) AP math and science scores: as a "tiebreaker", which is invoked quite often, it uses an average of your exact percentile scores (which, apparently, the College Board keeps somewhere). A number of people (like me) have done 7 out of all 7 APs evaluated in the competition, with all 5s, but fewer get the actual award.</p>
<p>Stats:
SAT I: M: 710 CR:560 W:630
SAT IIs: MathII:660 USHistory:710 Chemistry:700
ACT: N/A
GPA: 95 (Unweighted)
Rank: 22/434</p>
<p>EC: President/Founder Model UN, President Youth Ending Hunger, Club/District Secretary/Editor Roles in Key Club, Presenter/Treasurer of International Club, Executive Board of Peer Mentoring, Arts Writer of our High School's Newspaper, Over 300 hours of service </p>
<p>Summer Stuff: Summer Science Workshop for Minority Students at Union College, School Press Institute at Syracuse University: John Ben Snow Scholarship, Continuing Umbrella of Research Experience (CURE) for Minority Students at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center </p>
<p>Other Awards: Dartmouth Book Award, Society of Women Engineers Award, AP Scholar Award with Honors, Distinguished Key Clubber Award, Scholar Awards</p>
<p>AP: Euro (4), US History (4), Language (3), Chemistry (4)</p>
<p>Subjective:
Essays: Unique, Creative
Teacher Recs: Didn't Read
Counselor Rec: Didn't Read
Hook (if any): Minority-based program through Harvard Medical School
Location/Person:
State or Country: NY
School Type: Public
Ethnicity: Brown
Gender: Female
Perceived Strengths/Weaknesses:Everything but my SAT's
Why you think you were accepted/deferred/denied: low SAT's</p>
<p>I HAVE NO CHANCE FOR RD B/C MY SAT's SUCK AHH</p>
<p>I can't believe I wasted Harvard on my early action school. I feel so foolish for applying with my low SAT's. I don't know why I did it. And now for my other decision letter in four months.</p>
<p>Don't say that, having the right attitude is key to success! I know of a few people that have gotten in with low test scores but amazing EC's, much like yourself.</p>
<p>Edit: I, too, am starting a Model UN club at my school :)</p>
<p>It's pretty hard, but every student who has that attitude makes it just a bit easier for the rest of us deferrees. Don't despair! Do something meaningful! Write a great essay, discover a cure for cancer, something ;)</p>