Should I mention I won international level awards in middle school on college apps ?

As amazing as you were using the abacas in middle school, colleges in the US are only interested in accomplishments you did during your 4 years of High Schools, 9th through 12th grades.

The only exceptions are if you are have continued with the abacus and say are the national abacas champion having competed all through high school. Or if the abacus connected you do something else mathematically during 9th through 12th like solving Rubik's cubes in 7 seconds and that it was a foundational building block of understanding that permitted you to excel and something you are amazing at doing now.

If you stopped competing with the abacas after middle school, I don't think this would help your narrative because you can't rest on your past laurels or achievements if you haven't done anything in the last 4 years that you were equally as passionate about.

In America, kids, teens, and adults do not use the abacus in school or work so most college admissions officers have no historical or cultural understanding of the value of solving math problems using an ancient tool like that. In addition, there is no academic value in mastering the abacus in a college setting unless you are getting a Ph.D. in mathematical history writing a thesis on ancient math instruments or devices.

I think it would be better to leave this off your list of ECs and Honors. Perhaps you can write about it in your personal essay but you need to connect the dots about why you were so good at it and how it transformed you into a great high school student or something along those lines.

Good luck.

I don't think you should...

Like what the other person said, colleges look at 9-12.

One thing that you should note is people change

Have you stayed the same as you were in elementary? Are you the same "person"?

If not, then yeah don't do it, instead just put the ones that you have right now :)

First of all, that is extremely impressive and super cool that you did that!

To answer your question, if your reason for including these awards on college apps is just for the sake of having an international award listed, then I would say no, maybe don't mention it. However, if participating in these competitions MEANS something to you, if it's still relevant to your goals for your future and yourself as a person, if it gave you some direction for a career to pursue, if it changed you or majorly impacted you in some way, etc...then yes, I think it is okay to include.

Hope this helps and best of luck!

You should definitely!

What you do in High School is very important for colleges so make sure to have some extracurriculars in high school as well, but even middle school achievements can be impressive for colleges.

I think you should include it in a part of your application if it impacted something you do really well right now and talk about that.