Science Olympiad Help

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Anyone here on a Science Olympiad team?
So my school is starting its first ever SO team/club and I will be running it as the President.
What I need help with is:
How much funding does it generally require?
What subjects does it cover? For example, would it cover advanced Chemistry topics such as those of AP Chem, or is it more basic?
Additional information and help, if you'd like, would be great as well.</p>

<p>Thanks
-Korcha</p>

2

<p>The amount of funding required can vary wildly, I believe some school spend in the range of a few hundred dollars, while other spend thousands a year. Some of the major costs might include: registration ($60+state fees), travel/transportation to tournaments, general supplies (eg safety goggles for many events), build events (this will depend on how creative one is/how competitive one wants to be, and other available resources).</p>

<p>In terms of depth, the events often go into a lower-undergrad level (except there is an unwritten, generally accepted “rule” against calculus for the sake of fairness in math backgrounds). Of course, it is very decentralized, so one event supervisor might write a basic-HS chem test, while another could write a test for a 2nd year chem major.</p>

<p>Some general advice:

  1. Make sure everyone on your team knows their rules very well. You don’t want to be severely penalized on some small technicality.
  2. If your team is large enough, enter every event. At the very worst (assuming you do not do anything to get DQed), you improve your team’s score by one point (more if other teams do not enter that event). Furthermore, by having an unprepared person compete in the event anyway, they might learn something about the event or discover an event they love for future tournaments.
  3. Try to attend at least one invitational, if possible. It should help gauge your preparation for Regionals and assist in practicing events.</p>