Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Success stories”
The beginning of my journey I was born and raised in the countryside in Vietnam. When I was 6, my family, after a financial struggle, my parents decided to move to Hanoi – the capital city of Vietnam. This change opened a whole new horizon to me: skyscrapers replaced vast farming fields; glossy desks replaced several decade-old wooden tables in …
DURING THE SUMMER BEFORE MY SOPHOMORE YEAR, I ASKED ONE OF MY FRIENDS, AN UPPERCLASSMAN WHO HAD LOTS OF EXPERIENCE WITH THE VARIOUS OLYMPIADS, WHICH ACADEMIC OLYMPIAD I SHOULD TRY. HE SUGGESTED THE USA BIOLOGY OLYMPIAD (USABO) BECAUSE “IT TAKES THE LEAST AMOUNT OF TIME.” “JUST READ CAMPBELL,” MY FRIEND SAID. “IT’LL TELL YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.” HE …
Everaise Academy runs free annual five-week long online STEM summer camps geared towards learning biology and USABO preparation. As the organisers say, their goal at Everaise is to instill a lifelong love of learning in students. They aren’t just a contest preparation bootcamp—although their program is excellent training for academic competitions, their real objective is to expose kids to cool …
Biology olympiad preparation is a rigorous process which requires lots of time and dedication. Below you will find an article about biology olympiad preparation experience from the USABO student. Sophomore Audrey Cui yawns as she flips through the thick textbook in front of her. She has been studying for hours, yet she still unceasingly scans the pages. The USA Biology Olympiad …
On his second read-through of Campbell and Reece’s Biology, 18-year-old Jason Wu wrote the words he didn’t know into his spiral-bound notebook. By the fifth read-through, he had narrowed his focus to key charts and figures, and by the time he packed the 1,312-page tome into his Argentina-bound suitcase in July, the recent St. Louis, Mo., high school graduate pretty …
Rebecca Shi is a freshman at MIT, where she hopes to major in biology or biological engineering. She fences foil on the fencing team, and enjoys birdwatching and playing board games in her spare time. When I started high school, I found not just a new maze of hallways and a range of new classes, but also an exciting array …
An interview with Jorge Tarancón who won a bronze medal in the IBO 2016. Who are you? Where are you from? I‘m Jorge Tarancón from Spain, concretelly a small village (Pamplona) near France. I‘ve just finished high school and i passed in june the university exam in order to enter at university, so in september i will start studying Biotechnology in …
Lei Sun went to IBO 2006 in Argentina from Sweden and won a silver. Below she shares her story. I went to Argentina in 2006. The overall arrangement was so bad that it was still brought up many years later. Then again one can say it set a good example of cautionary tale so it’s unlikely to be as bad …
Kay Aull was a participant in the IBO 2003 and 2004. He shares his experience below. I was in the IBO twice representing the USA, in 2003 (Belarus) and 2004 (Australia). I won silver the first time and gold the second. Belarus was…surreal. I was half-convinced I’d fallen asleep on my Campbell and was dreaming the whole thing. Australia was …
Jelle Zijlstra, won bronze in 2008 and silver in 2009 IBO. He shares his experience in the IBO below. I was in the IBO twice representing the Netherlands, in 2008 (Mumbai, India) and 2009 (Tsukuba, Japan). I won bronze the first time and silver the second. I had a great time at both Olympiads, but the experience was very different. …
City centre, Singapore I was in the IBO twice representing Lithuania (a small country in Eastern Europe) in 2012 (Singapore) and 2013 (Switzerland) where both times I won a bronze medal. To be perfectly honest with you guys, it was the best experience I had ever had in my life. Singapore was one of the first countries that I …