<p>put down <em>something</em>, even if you are scraping. Honor Roll is good. The writing contest and science of olympia (whatever that is) sound like fair game. Do you have anything like Nat’l Merit semifinalist, or AP scholar? Pick the best 3-4 of whatever you can think of, even if you don’t believe it is impressive.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t expect a lot of sympathy for the position that your high school doesn’t hand out awards. Too many kids have made their own opportunities to compete and win awards. Kids can, and do, find out about competitions on their own in the areas they are interested in, and then find others willing to be on a team if required, and find a teacher willing to administer any exams involved. A 20 minute google-search will turn up dozens (hundreds?) of academic competitions of all kinds that anyone can enter if they are sufficiently motivated to find a way to work out the logisitics. Just look at homeschoolers - as a group, they have been phenominally successful at academic competitions in spite of having no school to support them.</p>