Biology Olympiad, Chemistry Olympiad or Physics Olympiad?

[LNC]

Does anyone have high schoolers who prepared for and took any of these tests/contests? Can you tell me about their prep and experience?

 

Did you have trouble finding ways to enter these as a homeschooler in your community? I'm not sure about how these upper level Olympiads work for homeschoolers?

 

Thanks!

Edited July 3, 2011 by LNC

[angela in ohio]

None of those, but dd did the Computational Linguistics Olympiad, which is one of the others in the same overall program. We were able to enter at a university site, and so they didn't care that we were homeschoolers. She prepped with the materials from their site, as they had links to previous years' questions.

 

I'm :bigear:, because she wants to do the Biology or Chemistry Olympiad next year, and I haven't started looking at info for it yet.

[Kathy in Richmond]

My kids participated in three different Olympiads (Math, Computing, & Computational Linguistics), but not the science competitions! Those three had no problems with homeschoolers participating at all. The Math Olympiads (ie, AMC contests) require finding an acceptable proctor, while computing (USACO) and computational linguistics (NACLO) can even be done at home with a parent proctoring.

 

Hopefully MomsintheGarden will see this thread. Her daughter participated successfully in the Chemistry Olympiad a few years ago.

[LNC]

Thanks for responding - we are ready to go for middle school math and science next year Olympiads. I was just wondering for the future bc the sponser for math ends in 6th grade and the homeschool science Olympiad is for middle school ages also.

 

I'll keep watch on this thread and research a bit more, maybe they can be taken at home.

:bigear:

[Belacqua]

My kids participated in three different Olympiads (Math, Computing, & Computational Linguistics), but not the science competitions! Those three had no problems with homeschoolers participating at all. The Math Olympiads (ie, AMC contests) require finding an acceptable proctor, while computing (USACO) and computational linguistics (NACLO) can even be done at home with a parent proctoring.

 

Did not know that! Wish I had, as we've schlepped to a none-too-close university for the last two NACLOs. But now I know better. :)

[Kathy in Richmond]

Did not know that! Wish I had, as we've schlepped to a none-too-close university for the last two NACLOs. But now I know better. :)

 

Yep! Home schools are eligible to register as high school sites, even if they only have one student.

[MomsintheGarden]

I noticed this thread yesterday, but I've been busy gardening and berry picking. :)

 

Kathy is correct, my dd did the Chemistry Olympiad (CO) in 2009, her junior year in high school. She had studied Apologia Chemistry in her sophomore year, and in her junior year was studying for the AP Chemistry exam using Zumdahl as her text and the DIVE CD for labs. I wanted for her to try the CO to help her prepare for the AP exam, which we knew to be a tough one.

 

She took the Local Exam at a high school 1 1/2 hours away, because it was the closest school that administered the LE in our ACS section. It took a LOT of calling to find a school. Hopefully you will be able to find a school more easily than I did.

Here's the site to help you find your local section:

http://webapps.acs.org/lslookup/

The ACS CO website says that you can email them directly if your local section is not participating (email them at usnco@acs.org).

 

The Local Exam was given on a weekday afternoon in mid-March. It has 60 questions on it, and a time limit of 110 minutes.

 

The top 13-20 scorers (no more than 2 from each school) on the Local Exam are invited to take the National Exam. Dd was invited, and was the first homeschooled student to take the NE in our section. Because the NE was given in a city about 4 hours away from us, we drove there the night before and stayed in a hotel. The NE was given on a Saturday at a community college in a chemistry classroom/lab. It began at about 9 AM and lasted until about 3:30 PM, with short breaks between sections and a break for lunch, which was provided. I enjoyed visiting with the high school chemistry teachers who had brought their students, and spent much of the time obnoxiously pumping them for information about the Chemistry AP exam. :)

 

The top 20 scorers on the National Exam are invited to an all-expense-paid chemistry camp held at the Air Force Academy in June. My dd did not make it to the camp. The top four students at the camp (+ 2 alternates) compete at the international CO.

 

My dd loved the experience. She doesn't mind taking tests, actually enjoyed the lab exam (which I was the most nervous about), and enjoyed our chemistry outings. Best of all, the extra study cemented her knowledge and love of general chemistry, which helped her do well on the AP exam as well as in her college chemistry classes.

 

HTH,

GardenMom

Edited July 4, 2011 by MomsintheGarden

[LNC]

Thanks for sharing your experiences! Those are great accomplishments for your children!

 

On the Chemistry Olympiad site it says for homeschoolers to contact your local section.

http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_SUPERARTICLE&node_id=1017&use_sec=false&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=6c7a0015-17fa-458e-8780-11ee74aa99a4

 

It looks like Physics Olympiad works the same way. It didn't find specific recommendations for homeschoolers, but I read the site for my state's section and it looked like the Chemistry rec.

http://www.aapt.org/Sections/officers.cfm?zip=28269&radius=1

 

On the Biology Olympiad site it says for homeschoolers to arrange testing with a local school? I guess that works out??

http://www.usabo-trc.org/guidelines.php

Edited July 5, 2011 by LNC

[snowbeltmom]

I was just wondering for the future bc the sponser for math ends in 6th grade and the homeschool science Olympiad is for middle school ages also.

:bigear:

 

I don't have any experience with the individual science Olympiads, but my son participates in the AMCs.

 

My son participated in the AMC 12B this past February. None of the high schools in my area participated so I registered my son to take the exam at our neighborhood library. Our local librarian administered the exam. There was some paperwork that the librarian had to complete, but overall the process was easy. You can get the specifics at http://www.amc.maa.org or google "american math competition."

[8filltheheart]

I noticed this thread yesterday, but I've been busy gardening and berry picking. :)

 

Kathy is correct, my dd did the Chemistry Olympiad (CO) in 2009, her junior year in high school. She had studied Apologia Chemistry in her sophomore year, and in her junior year was studying for the AP Chemistry exam using Zumdahl as her text and the DIVE CD for labs. I wanted for her to try the CO to help her prepare for the AP exam, which we knew to be a tough one.

 

She took the Local Exam at a high school 1 1/2 hours away, because it was the closest school that administered the LE in our ACS section. It took a LOT of calling to find a school. Hopefully you will be able to find a school more easily than I did.

Here's the site to help you find your local section:

http://webapps.acs.org/lslookup/

The ACS CO website says that you can email them directly if your local section is not participating (email them at usnco@acs.org).

 

The Local Exam was given on a weekday afternoon in mid-March. It has 60 questions on it, and a time limit of 110 minutes.

 

The top 13-20 scorers (no more than 2 from each school) on the Local Exam are invited to take the National Exam. Dd was invited, and was the first homeschooled student to take the NE in our section. Because the NE was given in a city about 4 hours away from us, we drove there the night before and stayed in a hotel. The NE was given on a Saturday at a community college in a chemistry classroom/lab. It began at about 9 AM and lasted until about 3:30 PM, with short breaks between sections and a break for lunch, which was provided. I enjoyed visiting with the high school chemistry teachers who had brought their students, and spent much of the time obnoxiously pumping them for information about the Chemistry AP exam. :)

 

The top 20 scorers on the National Exam are invited to an all-expense-paid chemistry camp held at the Air Force Academy in June. My dd did not make it to the camp. The top four students at the camp (+ 2 alternates) compete at the international CO.

 

My dd loved the experience. She doesn't mind taking tests, actually enjoyed the lab exam (which I was the most nervous about), and enjoyed our chemistry outings. Best of all, the extra study cemented her knowledge and love of general chemistry, which helped her do well on the AP exam as well as in her college chemistry classes.

 

HTH,

GardenMom

 

Thank you so much for posting this information. I'm not sure ds will want to do this in conjunction with chemistry, but I think he would love to do it with physics.