<p>What about Boys/Girls State?</p>
<p>Something like Teen Jeopardy is definitely more than a 4.</p>
<p>O_O So many lists… But I would add (and my school participates in both the NCFL and NFL) that while the NCFL is also prestigious, it is smaller because it is mainly made up of catholic schools and it is much easier to qualify for Catholic Nationals than for Nationals. So I would put qualifying for the NCFL at around a 3/4, and winning it at 7.</p>
<p>I just thought of something- what about valedictorian? Granted, it differs from school to school and is more of a title than an actual award, but I’d be interested in seeing where it falls within this huge, comprehensive, semi-arbitrary list.</p>
<p>We should devise a formula to rank competitions in terms of prestige. It’d be awfully tricky though, since you have to take into account many factors, such as regional/state/natl./international level, # of participants, how “well known” the competition is, etc. A little subjective…</p>
<p>@catchtwentythree, valedictorian is quite an honor and title, but even with large high schools, I would rank valedictorian no higher than a 5 (comparable to Natl. AP Scholar). The awards in the 6-7 range seem more prestigious.</p>
<p>@xanthosis: Those rankings are absurd. Qualifying for NFL is a 7, but winning the NCFL is also a 7? As an example, the 2012 Public Forum NCFL Tournament included over 200 teams. Winning out of that pool is no easy feat, even disregarding the high average skill level of the participants. The NFL and NCFL are comparable tournaments. If you must, qualifying for NCFL would be a 6 and winning would be an 8 (but I think a 9 would more appropriately fit its prestige and difficulty). Even that might not be accurate because in many places, qualifying for NFL is a good bit easier than qualifying for NCFL, simply because of tournament requirements (in my district, for example, you must first qualify for the Metro Finals by finishing highly in a major tournament, then finish top 6 at Metro Finals–facing stiff competition–to make NCFL).</p>
<p>@rspence given that someone was actually able to come up with a formula for schedule rigor, I think it would be possible</p>
<p>Quick comments, an eagle scout can easily accomplish a congressional award and a presidnetial volu teer service award, because they do stuff like that alll the time. It isnt very difficult getting those award, the problem is that u have to be a US citizen (i think). So i think those are wayy to exhalted on this list. An eagle scout can get those awards multiple times (if it were possible).</p>
<p>Also, where would making a successful charity go? </p>
<p>Sent from my SPH-D710 using CC</p>
<p>Apunia, while as I posted before, I think Eagle Scout is underrated on this list, I think you underestimate the work required for the Congressional Award Gold Medal. That particular award requires work in each of 4 areas for no less than 24 months. IOW, if you skip a month in any one area you’ll spend an extra month on top of the two years in pursuit of the CA. The service portion alone requires a minimum of 400 hours of focussed community service. I would estimate that DS spent somewhere on the order of 1500 hours working on the CA.</p>
<p>The people I’ve met who have done both (Eagle Scout & CA gold) described them as roughly analogous.</p>
<p>Are there different levels to the congressional award? Quite possible i looked at the lowest level. Sorry.
But for the presidents award, it is solely based on volunteering hours right?</p>
<p>Sent from my SPH-D710 using CC</p>
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<p>I’m totally up for doing that if you’re seriously considering it, even though school has started for me.</p>
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<p>No offense to the dude who did it, but I would hardly call that a formula since it was also pretty subjective.</p>
<p>Apunia-
Yes, the PSA is based solely on volunteer hours and those hours can be a hodge-podge of activities done over a short period of time. Still a good activity but nowhere near as time consuming or comprehensive as Eagle Scout or the CA silver or gold. That said, the highest level of the PSA requires a minimum of 250 hours of community service in a single year, so earning the gold level PSA in multiple years is quite a feat. If one were to earn the PSA gold each year of HS they would have at least 1000 hours of CS, far more service than is required by either ES or the CA.</p>
<p>The Congressional Award has 6 different levels, 3 certificate levels and 3 medal levels, culminating in the gold medal. Each medal level requires twice the work of the one preceding it. Achieving the CA gold is similar to ES in that both require a long-term commitment and the mentoring and input of multiple adults. I’ve been told the average time to complete the CA gold is 4-5 years.</p>
<p>(see post #40)</p>
<p>If one were to try to come up with a ranking formula I’d suggest an additional matrix- talent/effort. Some of the awards listed require require raw talent but a minimal time commitment. These would include things like NMS or certain arts or writing awards (not all, but some simply require the student to submit something already completed for an academic class). Others, such as Eagle Scout, the Congressional Award and some academic programs, require a sustained long term effort but are non-competitive and based more on work than ability.</p>
<p>The awards/achievements at the top of the pyramid, such as publishing a paper in a major scientific journal or becoming a D1 athlete require both talent and years of effort.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is whether the award in question can be achieved by riding on someone else’s coattails. For instance, I’ve seen FIRST robotics teams with 50 kids. Clearly not all of them are programmers. Is it really a huge achievement to have done fundraising for a winning robotics team? That is not to say that winning a national FIRST competition should be downgraded, just that in any activity it’s important to distinguish between the starters and the benchwarmers.</p>
<p>If one were to try to come up with a ranking formula I’d suggest an additional matrix- talent/effort. Some of the awards listed require require raw talent but a minimal time commitment. These would include things like NMS or certain arts or writing awards (not all, but some simply require the student to submit something already completed for an academic class). Others, such as Eagle Scout, the Congressional Award and some academic programs, require a sustained long term effort but are non-competitive and based more on work than ability.</p>
<p>The awards/achievements at the top of the pyramid, such as publishing a paper in a major scientific journal or becoming a D1 athlete require both talent and years of effort.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is whether the award in question can be achieved by riding on someone else’s coattails. For instance, I’ve seen FIRST robotics teams with 50 kids. Clearly not all of them are programmers. Is it really a huge achievement to have done fundraising for a winning robotics team? That is not to say that winning a national FIRST competition should be downgraded, just that in any activity it’s important to distinguish between the starters and the benchwarmers.</p>
<p>I’m offended about ISEF. It might not be as famous in the states, but you take on the very best from each country. In particular, my county has an extensive vetting process which begins with all national fair winners writing proposals and ending with 20 kids. You really tale on the best of the world, so winning an award is quite an accomplishment. Merely qualifying from a place in the states, unless it’s from a NYC type area is mostly a regional level award.</p>
<p>Nevermind, I saw that it got changed 
Are FBLA state awards on there?</p>
<p>I’m back! (I have school over the summer and CC was dragging me away from it)</p>
<p>Also, I have an idea for a forumula. It should be: (Number of competitors/Number of winners)+(Time/Dedication of Work[1 year equals 1])/Average GPA of the students competing (To see how smart the competition) or by some oother factor. Like I said, this is a tentative schedule. Many competitions like USAMO (250 compete and 25 win, but the competition is harder than other ones with lower acceptance) will be hurt though, so we should exercise personal judgement over these (I.E executive desicion.</p>
<p>Sue22 said:
Another factor to consider is whether the award in question can be achieved by riding on someone else’s coattails. For instance, I’ve seen FIRST robotics teams with 50 kids. Clearly not all of them are programmers. Is it really a huge achievement to have done fundraising for a winning robotics team? That is not to say that winning a national FIRST competition should be downgraded, just that in any activity it’s important to distinguish between the starters and the benchwarmers</p>
<p>I’d like to attribute to that as not all of them are programmers, but many are builders or “marketers” who quality control their robots and try to “sell” the best possible product to the judges. </p>
<p>Experience: 2x National FLL Champion (Haven’t done First Robotics yet, but have worked with many FIRST teams in the past.)</p>
<p>As for Eagle Scouts, I purposely made it quite lower than it shoudl be because of the average number of Eagle Scouts per year and that the community service hours are low. Also, training for USAMO takes 8 years starting in middle school or 5th grade and they must train daily to get an advantage for many hours. I do see how hard it is to become an Eagle Scout and respect that position, but it isn’t really “working” towards it perse, but finally reaching a culminating point of something that they have been doing casually for years. Lastly, many competitoins may only need a year or two of preperation, but that preperation is 10 hours a day of non-stop work (When you reach the 7-10 section).</p>
<p>My two cents worth about Eagle Scout. In our area, I have seen a huge difference in the effort and the final product of some of these projects. Some have received a huge amount of “assistance” from well meaning parents and troop leaders. They put out a large scope project which makes the local news and looks very impressive. They pad their projects and count researching on the computer as community service! Others may have done smaller scope projects but completed them almost completely on their own with very little help from adults. Just saying it is an honor to have the achievement in your record but they really are not a prestigious competition.</p>
<p>In regards to the valedictorian ranking: our school has many opportunities for students to take courses at the local state/community college and receive full weight equal to that of an AP class. You could conceivably take lots of dual enrollment both during the school year and the summer and out rank a peer who took exclusively AP at a much harder level of rigor. It is done all the time but is it fair and equal based on rigor? Of course not.</p>