FAQs

To preface, doing Science Olympiad at TJ is NOT mutually exclusive with other activities and sports. In fact, many of our members are also committed to activities such as marching band, cross country, Biology Olympiad, swim, debate, and so on. What doing Science Olympiad does mean, however, is making it one of your top priorities: Your success is proportional to the effort you put in, and for TJSO in particular, the team and your partners rely on your commitment.

You can at least expect two hours each week for our weekly Thursday after-school meetings, but the majority of time spent preparing will be at home in your own free time. Exactly how much time you spend is largely dependent on your events and your partners – we recommend developing a weekly schedule with your partner. As an example, for a study event, this might include spending two hours each weekend taking tests and studying together with your partner.

There are a few broad categories of events: study events, lab events, building events, and inquiry events.

• Study: you will be expected to take an exam, generally using a restricted set of resources as aid. These resources might look like a binder, a laptop without internet connection, or a set number of sheets of paper.
• Lab: a study event with a hands-on lab portion. This might entail a chemistry experiment, constructing circuits, or testing different samples in a forensics situation.
• Build: you design and build one or more devices according to a set of specifications and test them on competition day. These events may include a test portion as well.
• Inquiry: A miscellaneous section! Some events focus on the nature of science/meta-skills, like Experimental Design and Write It Do It, while other events are just cool things Science Olympiad didn’t have another place for, like Codebusters.

The National Science Olympiad organization sorts events into five topical categories; you can see their categorization here, under “C Events”.

Tournaments begin early in the morning and are split into roughly seven sessions, during which individual events are run. Each participant will generally have 3-4 events, leaving a few sessions of downtime for them to prepare. There is usually some passing time between each session, as well as a lunch break. Once the event sessions have concluded, we’ll hang out and grab a bite to eat before the awards ceremony in the evening.

The atmosphere and memories with the team you get are much harder to describe; you’ll have to trust us when we say it’s one of the best experiences of TJSO!

We ask for a fee (~$40-70) at the beginning of the season to cover the costs of tournament registration, t-shirts, and pizza. Before each tournament (usually 2 for the 45-person team and 2-3 more for the states team), we collect fees for travel/lodging expenses (~$100, potentially less or none if no bus or hotel, as in the case of regionals). For build events, you’ll also need to cover the costs of individual-use materials.

If you have trouble paying the full costs, just let us know! We will definitely work with your financial needs. We want everyone to be able to participate in TJSO!

Close, but not quite! The national Science Olympiad organization has announced a supplemental program called MY SO, which releases a series of materials and workshops on a certain subject area every month. Everyone, regardless of prior Science Olympiad experience, can participate! Plus, there’s an optional “STEM Showdown” competition at the end of each month.

Note that MY SO is entirely independent from Science Olympiad proper and is considered an individual, supplemental activity and not a competition.

We start each season with three teams of 15 (collectively termed our “regionals team”), which compete at at least one invitational tournament and one regionals tournament. Due to competition policy, however, we are only allowed to send one team of 15 to states and beyond; as such, we choose 15 team members of the original 45 to represent TJSO at states. Selection is done by our sponsors and is largely data-driven, based on factors like placements, event coverage, and overall contribution to the team.

Not making the states team doesn’t mean you’re “kicked out” – everyone is welcome back to practices, either to help out or challenge the states team for fun!

Yes! Freshmen are almost always on the states team, either as alternates or as part of the main competition.

We treat freshmen and new members just as any other member; they bring home just as many medals and are essential to our team dynamic.