How Valuable are National Academic Awards?

For argument’s sake, let’s say roughly 24K students enroll in the Ivies + Stanford + MIT (and YES I know there are many great schools outside these ten I’ve arbitrarily chosen). Do you think each of them won a national award? Are there even 24K national competitions?

Your goal is to be excellent. Sometimes that will lead to national level recognition. Often it won’t. Don’t stress about this – it’s a fool’s errand.