is qualifying for non us olympiads at the national level still impressive to big us colleges such as hypsm if ur dual citizen not applying international like for example cmo (canadian math olympiad) basically canada’s usamo harder than aime qual but easier than usamo cuz usamo has a lotta cheaters now just asking???
Just a heads-up: if you want people on this forum to take your posts seriously, you gotta drop the text shorthand and use actual grammar/punctuation. Walls of text or text-speech usually just get ignored here. Also, if you’re going to make a big claim, make sure you can actually back it up with facts—otherwise people are just going to call you out on it.
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You might want to read the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. As I understand it, it recommends that you do what is right for you, do it well, get good grades, and treat people well. This is pretty much what my family has done, and it has worked out at a pretty wide range of universities.
If you have participated in activities that are right for you, and done it well, then you have done the right thing.
If you are a Canadian citizen, then take a close look at the prices for various universities. University in the US can be very expensive. As an example, if you are a Canadian citizen and do not qualify for need based financial aid at universities in the US, then four years at Toronto or McGill (or other Canadian schools) might cost less than one single year at any of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, or MIT (just to pick on HYPSM – and ignoring the fact that Stanford does have some athletic scholarships).
If you are interested in any major for which graduate school is likely, then it definitely is possible to get a bachelor’s degree at one of the very good universities in Canada, and then get a graduate degree at a very good university in the US. I know multiple people who have done this, or in one case is doing this currently. This might for example benefit (in terms of cost) from the fact that a master’s degree takes less time compared to a bachelor’s degree, and a PhD is usually fully funded at least in STEM fields.
I note if you really study and reflect on things like what MIT is saying (or very similar things you can read/listen to from the Inside the Yale Admissions Office podcast, or so on), it becomes clear this word “impressive” is problematic as applied to activities.
Generally speaking, it is hard to truly “impress” AOs for these colleges in the sense a lot of HS kids seem to mean, since they see so many applicants who are “impressive” in those sorts of ways. To really stand out to them requires something a bit different, a sort of coherent narrative involving all of activities done with a lot of authentic enthusiasm, community involvement, possibly peer leadership, and so on, which is evidenced not just by individual competitive success but also recommendations and such that really paint a picture of an individual who will be missed by their school community.
To be frank, more kids are “impressive” in the sense of individual successes than are “impressive” in this more holistic sense, and studies have found that distinction does a lot to explain which kids actually get admitted unhooked to these colleges, much more so than some people seem realize.
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