The 2025 ACS Orange County Chemistry Olympiad Local Section Exam (LSE) competition was held on Saturday, March 1, 2025, from 8:45 am to 11:00 am in the Liberal Arts (LA) building at Irvine Valley College, Irvine, CA 92618. There were 248 High School students from 41 high schools from around the County who participated.
A group of 12 top individual students on the LSE advanced to the US National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO), which was held on Saturday, April 12, 2025, at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). This exam is 4.75 hours long (plus breaks), and includes written & lab components. Liran Zhu, an OC student who was among the top twenty scorers in the entire U.S., was invited to attend the National Chemistry Olympiad Study Camp, June 1-14, 2025, at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. The top four students at the National Study Camp represented the U.S. at the 57th International Chemistry Olympiad held July 5-14, 2025, in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
The top student from each school, the top six school teams and those who competed in the USNCO were honored at the Orange County High School Chemistry Awards Banquet on May 21, 2025.
Read here for more background about the Chemistry Olympiad competition.
Click on the buttons below for details on the winning students and teams in the OCACS 2025 Chemistry Olympiad:
We gratefully acknowledge
Irvine Valley College is the sponsor of part 1 of the Chemistry Olympiad Exam and
The University of California, Irvine, is the sponsor of Part 2 of the 2025 Chemistry Olympiad exam.
For questions, please get in touch with Brent Shenton at lnbshenton@gmail.com.