Top STEM Contests to Boost Your Ivy Odds

For high school students with a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), participating in prestigious contests can be a game-changer. Not only do these competitions provide a platform to showcase one’s intellectual prowess, creativity, and problem-solving skills, but they also offer a unique opportunity to catch the attention of top-tier universities.

College Private Counseling

Develop an organized and effective application strategy that leverages your academic and extracurricular experience to stand out.

LEARN MORE

TOP STEM CONTESTS TO BOOST YOUR IVY ODDS

We’ve curated a list of the top STEM competitions specifically tailored for high school students. From robotics challenges to scientific research competitions, each contest not only serves as a way to validate your academic excellence but also as a gateway to the most prestigious educational institutions.

Regeneron Science Talent Search: Your parents may remember this competition as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. It is the same competition (the oldest in the U.S. for high school students), it just has a new sponsor. The competition is open to students who are US Citizens or students of any citizenship who go to school in the U.S. Students must submit their individual research project for review and can win up to $250,000 in scholarships. (Due: November, 2024)
National Sciences Bowl: Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, this team-based STEM competition resembles a traditional high school quiz bowl format. Students are tested on their knowledge of biology, chemistry, earth and space science, energy, mathematics, and physics, and the questions get progressively more difficult. Regional competition registration deadlines vary by region, with the national championship held in late April.
AMC (American Mathematics Competition)/AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination): The AMC, AIME, and USAMO are three levels of school-based mathematics examination competitions aimed at targeting the top math students in the U.S. Students first sit for the AMC10 or AMC12. The top 2.5-5% of scorers on these tests are then invited to take the AIME exam, and the top AIME scorers are invited to the final round of competition, the USAMO (United States of America Mathematical Olympiad), which represents some of the best high school mathematicians in the U.S. (The AMC test is offered in November of each year)
USACO (USA Computing Olympiad): In this test-based competition, students can use C++, Java, C, or Python languages to answer three competitive programming problems. Competitors begin in the lowest level, Bronze, and can progress through four increasingly difficult divisions to Platinum. The top USACO participants are invited as “finalists” to a summer training camp, from which four are selected to represent the U.S. in the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). (The first contest is usually held in mid-December)
FIRST Robotics Competition: Future engineers will enjoy the FIRST Robotics Competition, which challenges high school teams to build and program industrial-sized robots to compete against other team’s robots in a field game set each year by contest administrators. This contest involves teamwork, computer science and engineering knowledge, and creativity, and teams progress through regional rounds to the national championship in this year-long competition.

As you can see, the competition landscape is wide and varied. This is just a small sampling of contests that can catch the eye of admission officers. Be proactive as you explore your academic field and challenge yourself to enter contests throughout your high school career! For the top five Humanities and Social Science contests, stay tuned for Part 2 in this series next week.

Author
Recent Posts

Nellie Brennan Hall

Senior Private Counselor at Top Tier Admissions

Nellie has spent her entire career in teaching, admissions, and counseling. As Associate Director of Admission at Brown University, she spent nearly a decade recruiting and evaluating applicants. In her role as chair of selection committees, Nellie made executive decisions on applicants and also served as a central member of the athletics committee. Armed with a nuanced view of the review process in highly selective institutions, Nellie moved into college counseling at independent schools, helping students craft essays and guiding them through every stage of the college search and application processNellie’s students have gained admission to the top schools in the country, among them Harvard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, UPenn, Northwestern, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Amherst, and Middlebury. Nellie graduated from Harvard and holds an M.Ed. from Notre Dame in Secondary Education and an Ed.M. from Harvard in Higher Education, where she was awarded the Pforzheimer Fellowship.

Latest posts by Nellie Brennan Hall (see all)