Hey everyone, Science Olympiad awards should go in the Honors section of the Common App, correct?
I have a lot of them so I was thinking of writing “X Science Olympiad Medals (x state, x regional, x invitational; x gold, x silver, x bronze)”. This seems really wordy though. Is this good practice or is there a better way to do it?
Thanks!
I’m listing my Scioly stuff under the Activities section with total medal count, state medal count, and gold medal count (tbh not sure if that’s a good idea?? but I didn’t want to double-dip Scioly in the Honors and Activities sections). Maybe someone who’s done this before can actually answer so (casually lol) bump
Depending on how competitive your state is in SO, you may not want o list invitational medals. Invitationals are just practice because they typically mean nothing. State medals/ribbons and regionals are worth noting.
@jg18 and @kiwikid18
Here’s how my son did it…
He listed all his state level SciOly awards in one slot in the Honors section.
“Science Olympiad - Blahdeeblah State Competition - Astronomy (xth place 2014, yth 2015, zth 2016), Cell Biology (xth 2015, yth 2016), It’s About Time (xth 2016)”
In the Extracurriculars section.
“Co-Captain: 10th, 11th, 12th grades. Led team to state competition 2014, 2015, 2016. All awards listed in additional information section”
Then in the Additional Information Section
“2015 Bluhbluh Invitational: Astronomy xth place, Bridge Building xth place”
And so on.
Including invitationals, regionals and states, he went to a total of 10 tournaments, so it ended up taking up a lot of space. Also, I disagree with the previous post about invitationals. Medalling at the MIT or Yale Invitationals is infinitely more impressive than medalling in most regionals. Those two attract some of the best teams from all over the country.
@Shrmpngrtz
Do adcoms know the level of competitiveness of invites? (Like Wright State is really competitive but not a super well-known college in and of itself, so is it worth listing? Also I’m from Ohio and all our invites are pretty competitive overall bc so many good schools here and in the Midwest area [IL, MI, etc.])
@kiwikid18 Do adcoms know about the level of competitiveness of invites? That’s impossible to answer. If you are concerned, in the additional information section, you can mention that the invitational includes top teams from around the country. To SciOly nerds like us, the names Solon, Northville, Troy, Fayetteville-Manlius, mean something. To others, it means nothing.
If nothing else, the invitationals help show the time and effort involved in the activity. Especially for an aspiring STEM major, it seems like a good idea to include them.
@Shrmpngrtz Which is why I said depending on how competitive your state is you “may” not want to list invitationals. To the extent you are talking about MIT or Yale, list them. But I wouldn’t list garden variety invitationals (which is most of them – that I have seen anyway). YMMV.
@kiwikid18 Wright State has hosted 2 of the last 5 national tournaments. So someone who is familiar with Science Olympiad (at least if they know enough to be impressed about any invitational other than based on pure name recognition) is likely to have heard about the Wright State Invitational. Though as noted, the understanding levels of admission officers in terms of SO will vary greatly by school (and likely within the same school).
If what makes an invitational competitive is having at least a couple nationally competitive schools in attendance pretty much every invitational in Ohio would count as Solon is at pretty much all of them (along with Mentor and Centerville). And at least one out of state school as well (and if you are travelling from out of state, your team will be a pretty good team). But many of the schools at those invitationals use them for practice. They have kids try events for the first time. Try to find pairs of kids who work best, etc.
As with any question about including something in an application, the question is what will you leave off your app. Or what you will dilute by including something else. To me, the more state awards you have, the fewer invitational awards you should include.
And I understand the competition in Ohio. I have 2 kids with 8 cumulative years in Division C over the past 6 in Ohio. If you don’t go to Solon or Centerville (and with last year, Mentor), States is your national because you have no shot at actual nationals. Mentor would have made national two years ago but Centerville successfully challenged a penalty assessment and was awarded 2d place and the trip to nationals.
@saillakeerie Our school/state are very competitive. We went to a bunch of ivy invitationals and got 1st/2nd place overall. So ideally I would list those out.
@Shrmpngrtz I would do the individual listing method, but I think I competed in too many different events at state to be able to squeeze them all in the honors slot like that. (+20 medals overall/8 at state, listing them out seems like overkill lol).
Do you think it would be wise to just write in the honor description “20 Science Olympiad medals at state, regional, invitational; see additional info section for details” and then list them out there?
@jg18 You can do it that way as well. Don’t stress out too much about this - admissions officer will get your point - they will see 9th, 10th and 11th grades checked off (or whatever years you won your medals) and see S/R checked off. List the individual awards in the Additional Info section. If they are interested, they can read more about it. If they don’t care, they won’t. In an ideal world, your five honors should help to support your application narrative and should not be just a list of things you won. Take some time to think about the other 4 Honors you choose to include. Best of luck to you.
You could try grouping them together. If say you won a medal in the same event in invitationals and at state or multiple years. Or pick medals in your favorite events and list those. I agree that listing 20 medals seems like overkill. Though congrats as that is an impressive accomplishment.