Relative Weight of These Awards?

<p>Which carries more weight: United States National Chemistry Olympiad High Honors (Top 50 in the nation) or Siemens Regional Finalist? And why?</p>

<p>They’re both very very impressive. Ranking them is probably a futile task; it likely fluctuates based on the impressiveness of the research.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Anyone else who can provide some insight?</p>

<p>The siemens competition? I think if you a regional finalist regardless of what you research, you must have done something signfiicant to go there. Congrats on doing that, I’d find that pretty impressive.</p>

<p>so siemens regional semifinalist trumps USNCO High Honors?</p>

<p>^^//edit: “regional finalist” not “reigonal semifinalist”</p>

<p>Another question: On the common app, they only give a five spaces to list awards. The rest you can list in “Additional Information” but my counselor said that “less is more”, meaning that you don’t necessary want to list ALL the awards you’ve gotten your whole high school career. My question is: is National Merit Semifinalist worth noting on there? What about school awards in academic subjects?</p>

<p>I’d say National Merit is important, but that you can leave out the school awards.</p>

<p>Probably National Chemistry Olympiad High Honors because it is a national award rather than, a regional award as Regional Finalist is.</p>

<p>dblazer, Siemens Regional Finalist is not a regional award. It is a national award picking the best of the Siemens Semifinalists from each region. I believe there are 30 individuals and 30 teams picked as Regional Finalists out of the initial pool for Siemens? </p>

<p>sunshine02, I would place USNCO High Honors and Siemens Regional Finalist before National Merit on the common app honors section. I would probably place Siemens Regional Finalist a little higher than USNCO High Honors, but they are probably similar in impressiveness.</p>

<p>@Apoc314, Regional Finalist is obviously impressive, but it’s technically still regional. Winning at the next round would be considered national. That’s not to take away from the awesomeness of the accomplishment. They’re on a similar level and i’m 100% sure the order of the placement on the common app actually changes nothing in terms of college admissions.</p>

<p>I guess you could say that. It’s just that the Siemens semifinalists are the top 300 national research projects then they choose the Regional Finalists as the top 60 projects from these 300 projects from each region so the actual classification gets kind of murky. Eh, whatever. They’re both good stuff. I think we can agree on that.</p>

<p>So, to clarify since siemens results came out today…</p>

<p>would USNCO High Honors provide a higher boost than Siemens SEMIFINALIST (not Finalist)?</p>

<p>^ Definitely</p>

<p>How about USAMO qualifier vs USNCO High Honor?</p>

<p>Probably USAMO because that is more well known</p>