Getting started
Starting a Science Olympiad team can be a daunting task. Fortunately, there are tried-and-true steps outlined on the national website that can help on your future team's journey to competition at the state tournament and beyond! To read all the details, you can visit this website, but here’s a summary.
To become an SCSO member and register for the state tournament, visit our registration page. Contact state director Patrick Nelson (scso.director@gmail.com) with any questions.
1. Gather support
A vital first step is a school that will support you and your team. Relatively little funding is necessary to operate a team (the South Carolina registration fee is $200, roughly average compared to other state associations), though your school may have certain requirements that have to be met for you to operate a club or competition team like Science Olympiad. Costs can vary from season to season, as you'll also have to factor in expenses such as travel and food. Invitational tournaments, which are offered nationwide from October to April, almost always have registration fees of their own. Once you have the approval of your school and/or district's administrators, you can move on to building your team.
Your community may also have resources to help you! Just by reaching out, you may find that there are many people in the community who would be happy to volunteer some time to help your students learn. The community can often be a valuable resource, including experts willing to provide clarity on a subject or advice on building a device.
2. Recruit interested students
The heart of any Science Olympiad teams is the group of students that study and participate in events. Science Olympiad is divided into two main divisions. Division B, or the “middle school division” is for students in sixth to ninth grade. Division C, or the “high school division”, is for students in ninth to twelfth grade. Some states sponsor Division A (the elementary school division), but we do not.
A team is composed of up to 15 students from one school. Students compete in events as pairs (or rarely trios) and can compete in multiple events over the course of a competition day.
3. Learn about the competition and begin practicing
A Science Olympiad tournament involves competition in 23 events involving different areas of STEM. Events compete mostly in roughly hour-long blocks over the course of a day, usually a Saturday from roughly 8:00 a.m. until early- to mid-afternoon. Some events consist of a written exam, some have students test or run a device, and some combine the two. Each division has its own event slate which is decided by the national organization, and there is some overlap of events between divisions. In most tournaments (including our state tournament), medals are awarded to the students who rank the highest in each event.
The nature of the competition necessitates that some events conflict with others at the state tournament. This means that a student who is interested in two events, which happen to be competing simultaneously at state, would have to choose one to focus on. South Carolina copies the event conflicts in place at the national tournament each season.
Don’t worry about the competition schedule or event conflicts at first - let students look over the events and see what they are most drawn to! Some will gravitate towards the exam-based events, where they'll be able to find resources and curate reference sheets to take with them on competition day, while others will be drawn to the building events where they can show off their craft and precision. Many schools practice at least once a week in after-school sessions, a great way to promote team-building and self-study of events.
4. Prepare for competition
In South Carolina, there are three types of competitions in the Science Olympiad season:
Invitationals are held across the country for the duration of the season, often beginning in October. Most are open to any team who pays the registration fee and is willing to travel (and for those that are unable to travel, virtual invitationals are also plentiful). They can provide valuable competition experience before the more important tournaments later in the school year. They often award medals to the top competitors in each event and trophies to the best-performing teams, though ultimately they are nothing more than practice and their results have no bearing on qualification for, or placement in, any other tournaments.
State is where the best teams in each stats compete for a championship. South Carolina has hosted a state tournament every year since 1985 (except 2020). The current host of our state tournament is Presbyterian College in Clinton. We host a combined state tournament, meaning both divisions compete on the same day. The champion of each division at state receives a bid to the Science Olympiad National Tournament to compete as South Carolina’s representative.
Nationals is the pinnacle of each Science Olympiad season with 60 teams per division. Normally, each school sends one state to compete in each division, and the ten states with the most registered teams get to send an extra team. The national tournament is often hosted by a large university which rotates each year. The last national tournament, in May 2026, was hosted at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and the next one will be held at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. South Carolina teams have won six national championships, three in each division.
5. Compete in a tournament
This is the fun part! The state tournament concludes with an awards ceremony held in beautiful Belk Auditorium at Presbyterian College. We celebrate the top four finishers in each event with medals, and the four best teams in each division receive trophies and plaques. We also give out the George J. Renwick Sportsmanship Award to one team in each division.
The next state tournament is scheduled for February 27, 2027, at Presbyterian College. Registration is currently open! Click here to register your team.