<p>How hard is it to get a semifinalist position in any of the above competitions? I'll be spending my next two summers researching cancer; specifically, a gene that is believed to be a metastasis suppressant. I was thinking that I might present my research in these large competitions.</p>
<p>However, there's already some research done on this gene (completed in 2005/6). Would I have any chance of getting a semifinalist position if I presented my very hands-on, advanced research, or would it be completely worthless since similar research has been completed recently? For these successful Siemens/Intel projects, do you HAVE to be a pioneer in your topic? Right now I'm a rising high school junior working in a lab among people who have either graduated medical school and gotten doctorates or are currently in medical school.</p>
<p>Nowadays, these competitions have become battles of the labs and I doubt anyone doing cancer research is anything close to a pioneer (maybe a research assistant). Trust me if you can get published that will be much more impressive than going to Siemens. If you do get published you will do extremely well at Siemens because you will have proof that you actually were a contributing member to your project.</p>
<p>I am not sure how comfortable your lab is with letting you go to Siemens or ISEF (some labs might see it as good for publicity while others might see it as though you are using them). Either way doing research in a lab is extremely impressive and irregardless of ISEF and Siemens (which in my opinion are stifling to real science by saying someone's research is "better" than someone else's) you will fare well in college admissions. I did research in a cancer research lab for 2 summers also and in the end I am attending Brown (I was also accepted to JHU, CMU, and Umich both with scholarships and research grants). I think it was my research that definitely helped me to be so successful in the college admissions game and it also showed me the promise of a career as a PhD.</p>
<p>So don't dwell on the importance of Siemens/ISEF, they are only good for scholarship money. A publication is much better than some high school science fair especially in your field of interest.</p>
<p>Thanks for the helpful comment. We will be releasing some publications, so I guess I'll be alright then :)</p>