Scioly.org

Do colleges care about winning or qualifying to nats as a 9th grader in div b?

Obv they care... but how much? I would imagine its like them caring about winning nationals as an 8th grader (which is basically nothing since they don't care about middle school activity). Is it minimally worth doing?

I doubt they really care too much, but you shouldn't do Science Olympiad just for getting into colleges. Also, they don't know whether you did well or it was your partner/teammate/etc.

Random Human wrote:Do colleges care about winning or qualifying to nats as a 9th grader in div b?

Obv they care... but how much? I would imagine its like them caring about winning nationals as an 8th grader (which is basically nothing since they don't care about middle school activity). Is it minimally worth doing?

I'm not sure if they would care that much just for qualifying...

But it's pretty good if you can medal in your events I guess.

pb5754[] wrote:

Random Human wrote:Do colleges care about winning or qualifying to nats as a 9th grader in div b?

Obv they care... but how much? I would imagine its like them caring about winning nationals as an 8th grader (which is basically nothing since they don't care about middle school activity). Is it minimally worth doing?

I'm not sure if they would care that much just for qualifying...

But it's pretty good if you can medal in your events I guess.

this depends on the state.
I don't mean any offense to anyone, but going to nats from Vermont is not difficult. However, if a team from here in SoCal beat Troy and went to nats, that would be a completely different story.

PM2017 wrote:

pb5754[] wrote:

Random Human wrote:Do colleges care about winning or qualifying to nats as a 9th grader in div b?

Obv they care... but how much? I would imagine its like them caring about winning nationals as an 8th grader (which is basically nothing since they don't care about middle school activity). Is it minimally worth doing?

I'm not sure if they would care that much just for qualifying...

But it's pretty good if you can medal in your events I guess.

this depends on the state.
I don't mean any offense to anyone, but going to nats from Vermont is not difficult. However, if a team from here in SoCal beat Troy and went to nats, that would be a completely different story.

Middle school is so much less competitive though. I have a feeling that winning nationals in div b as a 9th grader is worthless, but please tell me if I'm wrong.

Random Human wrote:

PM2017 wrote:

pb5754[] wrote: I'm not sure if they would care that much just for qualifying...

But it's pretty good if you can medal in your events I guess.

this depends on the state.
I don't mean any offense to anyone, but going to nats from Vermont is not difficult. However, if a team from here in SoCal beat Troy and went to nats, that would be a completely different story.

Middle school is so much less competitive though. I have a feeling that winning nationals in div b as a 9th grader is worthless, but please tell me if I'm wrong.

True, I was thinking more along the lines of being the team captain (or officer on the team's board) as a junior in HS, for a team that either pulled off a huge upset or placed at nationals. If, however, you are already at that level, you probably have so many other things that help college admission chances much more significantly than scioly.

PM2017 wrote:

Random Human wrote:

PM2017 wrote: this depends on the state.
I don't mean any offense to anyone, but going to nats from Vermont is not difficult. However, if a team from here in SoCal beat Troy and went to nats, that would be a completely different story.

Middle school is so much less competitive though. I have a feeling that winning nationals in div b as a 9th grader is worthless, but please tell me if I'm wrong.

True, I was thinking more along the lines of being the team captain (or officer on the team's board) as a junior in HS, for a team that either pulled off a huge upset or placed at nationals. If, however, you are already at that level, you probably have so many other things that help college admission chances much more significantly than scioly.

Div B is about as competitive as Div C - at most 10-15% less. I didn't change my workload for SO between 9th grade and 10th grade, and didn't experience any serious dropoff.

If your primary worry for this question is college applications, you're going about it entirely wrong. If you've gone through the other various factors like team composition, personal preference, logistics, personal curiosity, interest in the events, etc, and you still are completely even, then and only then should you think about how college admissions come into play.

At least at my school it's pretty universally assumed that colleges only care about individual Olympiad medals, not Science Olympiad medals. I don't know how somebody would do a controlled trial on that but logically it would make sense to prefer something where students can't just depend on other people to help them succeed?

Are event descriptions supposed to be shared to the public?