In his speech at the dinner honoring the 1991 Winners, President George H. W. Bush called the competition the "Super Bowl of science.

Collectively, they have received millions of dollars in scholarships and gone on, in later years, to capture Nobel Prizes, Fields Medals, MacArthur Fellowships and numerous other accolades.

[7] Thirteen alumni of the Science Talent Search went on to receive Nobel Prizes, two earned the Fields Medal, eleven have been awarded the National Medal of Science, twenty received MacArthur Fellowships; three have won the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research; seven have won a Breakthrough Prize; and many have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.

[7] Entrants to the competition conduct original research—sometimes at home and sometimes by working with leading research teams at universities, hospitals and private laboratories.

In March, the Finalists are flown to Washington, D.C. for a week where they are interviewed by a judging panel about their projects, and to assess the breadth and depth of STEM knowledge, creativity and problem solving abilities.