<p>I'm going to be a senior soon, and I have some questions about one of my extracurricular activities: scientific research. I have been heavily involved in a research project at a local university and am in the process of publishing a paper with my results. I did not enter any major science fair competitions like Intel or Seimens with my project. I was wondering how publishing in a professional journal compares with being semifinalist or finalist at those prestigious competitions. Thank you for your input :)</p>
<p>It’s not really helpful to compare the two but… Winning a major science competition looks better because it’s so rare/competitive-- plus the projects that tend to win those competitions tend to be more novel and significant than other research.</p>
<p>But published research looks GREAT as well. Few applicants have published research even when applying to graduate school!</p>
<p>“plus the projects that tend to win those competitions tend to be more novel and significant than other research.”</p>
<p>that’s not true. Competition is fierce for funding and publishing in top journals. To get funding novelty and significance is evaluated by other scientists stringently. </p>
<p>One thing winning intel types of science contests has over publishing a paper is that the former is more driven by the applicant (student). The research in a paper is primarily driven by the PI (lab head) who conceived the work and secured the funding</p>
<p>I was comparing winning a prestigious competition like Siemens of Intel with getting published in any journal… Do you know how many papers are published every day? Do you know how many ISEF/Siemens winners there are every day? C’mon now. I don’t think I need to list out what the past ISEF winners researched vs what was published in JACS today to prove it (but for the hell of it, “Using Artificial Intelligence to Create a Low Cost Self-driving Car” vs “A Dual-Emission Fluorescent Nanocomplex of Gold Clusters Decorated Silica Particle for Live Cell Imaging of Highly Reactive Oxygen Species”, can you tell which is which?)</p>