Effect of Siemens Competition on Admission

haavain
Mon, 31 May 2010 22:41:09 +0000

I know it’s not exactly the same, but the Siemens Award for AP did absolutely nothing for me.



Try “completely different.” The Siemens AP award is a modified version of the State AP Scholar awards–it’s not an unimpressive acheivement by any means, but it’s a very academic one, and in a lot of states you can get it with a courseload that would be run-of-the-mill for an HYPSM applicant.

The Siemens competition is a research competition. You have to have completed an original research project and written an eighteen-page paper on that project just to enter; only about a quarter of those entering make Semifinalist, and even fewer get to the regional stage of the competition. An award in the Siemens (or Intel) competition absolutely makes colleges, even HYPSM, sit up and notice.

HYPSM get a lot of Siemens placers, though. I don’t think it’ll make up for an obviously deficient application there, or even a lackluster one. Probably it has more of an effect one or two notches below that.