<p>Hi, I am currently a high school freshman who is interested in joining the science lymphoid team at my school. Since my school's team is top ten in the nation, it requires a lot of time to be put in outside of school, so I'm not sure whether/not it will be worth it.</p>
<p>My goal is to try for one of the BA/MD programs (guaranteed admission into med. school). I was wondering whether or not being a member of the science olympiad team (projected runner up in the coming year at nats) will really help my chances of getting into these competitive programs, or if it is not worth the time committment and possible sacrifice of good grades. I probably will be able to research, shadow, and volunteer and be part of many other extracurricular activities, but I was just wondering if this would further help my chances.</p>
<p>i think if you have the opportunity to be on a top ten team, then you should do it. and you should look into george washington’s seven year BA/MD program</p>
<p>As a general rule, having something is better than not having it on a college application. The only way that doing an additional task or activity can hurt you is if it takes too much time or energy or distracts you from other things. If you’re interested at all, you might as well do it this year; if it’s too big of a time commitment you can just quit later.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone, but of what importance in science olympiad to colleges? On a scale of 1-20 what would you rate science olympiad? Compared to research, good grades, etc.</p>
<p>STUDENTS ACCEPTED INTO BA/MD PROGRAM: (if you’re reading this, which i highly doubt) DID YOU DO SCIENCE OLYMPIAD, AND IF YOU DID DO YOU THINK IT REALLY HELPED YOU??</p>
<p>Good grades and good test scores top all ECs. But after that, Science Olympiad is a great EC if you are interested in studying the sciences. Unless your own research is good enough to win you a prize at one of the major competitions, I would say Science Olympiads are as good as research or any other EC I can think of that is “mainstream”.</p>
<p>Yessss!!! It helps loads! And when u can win some awards it shows tht u hve interest in the med field, this will get u into those programs u were talkin abt</p>
<p>But, since my school’s team is very competitive, I can prob. only make the useless events like entomology. Would this be worth writing on my college resum</p>
<p>So my kid studied for and took the USA Biology Olympiad test. As many students as wanted to could do this… is that what your team does, or is it doing something else?</p>
<p>No, science olympiad is different the the USABO. Science olympiad has 23 different events in which students compete in teams of 2-3 for each event. Evens include the study of insects, water quality, build events, forensics, chemistrty Lab, materials science, etc.</p>
<p>*As a general rule, having something is better than not having it on a college application. * Yup. When it comes to STEM, if the hs offers it and time allows, it is usually a wise choice. And since the issue is BA/MD- and you seem to be aiming for NU, you still need the rest of the activities. And the stats. It’s a competitive program. </p>
<p>So far, you are only asking what the colleges will like. If you simply cannot manage, that’s a different question.</p>
<p>Yes, LookingForward, I’m afraid that I might not be able to quite balance grades, science olympiad, and 6 other ECs that I’m doing (including tennis, piano, chess, future doctors of America, and some science clubs). In addition, I’m not sure whether I want to invest my time in learning a subject that I won’t even get involved in in the longrun and that I’m not passionate about. Is it worth the waste of time?</p>
<p>All of the EC’s in the world won’t compensate if your grades don’t stay up. Keeping them up has to be job #1. You don’t need a horde of EC’s, concentrate on a few and make sure you are a high contributor/leader and that’s reflected on your apps. You’ll get more mileage that way than spreading yourself too thin.</p>
<p>I always feel sorry for kids who had great grades but then they dropped because of too many EC’s. I wonder what they might have done if they hadn’t been too ‘busy’ and I’d bet that admission committees wonder the same thing. Really, it’s a shame. You need to focus.</p>
<p>Since you’re a freshman now, why not follow your instincts, this year? See what you can manage and then ask this question late next summer. You have time.</p>