Interesting. Of course, Olympiads are never a objective measure I may have implied them to be. But I feel in this case, they are one of only a few measures that exist. I completely agree with you that there are thousands with all As and All 5s most likely applying to UPenn, but I theorize that standing out is just as much a, if not more a problem for them as it is me.of course, many are far more talented then me, but without a at least quantifiable metric like Olympiads, I think it would be hard to stand out especially when applying to chemical engineering. Research is something easily talked up and it is hard to discern the intellectual rigor of it.