The Chemistry Olympiad

About the Chemistry Olympiad

The International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) is an annual event in which countries from around the world send their top four high school chemistry students to compete against each other. Over 80 countries participate in the competition, which is held in a different country each year. The idea of the International Chemistry Olympiad was developed in the former Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the first Olympiad took place in Prague on June 18-21, 1968. See the International Chemistry Olympiad website for details.

The US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO) is a chemistry competition designed to encourage high school students to achieve excellence in chemistry. The American Chemical Society has sponsored the program since 1984. For more information, visit www.acs.org/olympiad.

The Orange County Chemistry Olympiad is the first step in the US National Chemistry Olympiad. Typically, about forty High Schools from all over Orange County send teams of up to four students to compete in the Local Section exam (LSE), which is usually held in early March. The top ten or eleven individual students on this exam are eligible to advance to the national round of the competition where each student takes a 4.75 hour exam that includes extensive laboratory work. Approximately 1,000 students across the US advance to this round. Those that score among the top twenty nationally on this test are invited to attend the Olympiad Study Camp. The top four at the Study Camp then go on to represent the US at the International Chemistry Olympiad in July.

Over the past forty plus years, six Orange County schools (Beckman, Irvine, Sunny Hills, Troy, University and Valencia) have had students qualify for the US National Chemistry Olympiad Study Camp.

There was an interesting talk about the Chemistry Olympiad given by Brent Shenton at the Annual General Meeting of the Section held in September 2022. Click here for the slide presentation.

Click here for a link to examples of past Chem Oly exams.