- Each school can bring one Division B Team (Middle School grades 6-9) and one Division C Team (High School grades 9-12) to the State Tournament. (For home-shooled students, see below)
- Each team must register for State and National Science Olympiad membership at $150 per team. ($75 for state membership and $75 for national membership.)
- Each team is composed of 15 students or less from one school in one of the two divisions.
- Each team can have up to 5 alternate competitors. Alternates can fill in for absent team members. Otherwise, alternate competitors may only compete in trial events at the state tournament.
- No teacher/coach may supervise more than one team. Please bring a coach or supervisor for each team.
- Some invitational tournaments may allow you to bring a second B Team or C Team for exhibition only (which means they are not a competitive team.) In this case, the second team only needs to pay the national membership fee of $75.
- Division B teams may have a maximum of (5) 9th graders. Middle schools may invite five (5) of their last year’s eighth grade students to be part of a team.
- Division C teams may have a maximum of seven (7) seniors.
Home-Schooled Students
Option 1 - Participation through a Local Public SchoolIf the state in which a home schooled student resides allows home schooled students to participate in public school activities, home schooled students may either (1) choose to participate as a member of the Science Olympiad team at the local public school they would attend were they not home schooled, or (2) form a home school team as set forth in Option #2, below.
Option 2 - Participation through a Home School TeamScience Olympiad will recognize Home School Teams consisting only of students who live within the boundaries of two contiguous (side-by-side) geographic counties in a single state. As of July 20, 2011, the two-contiguous-county/single state policy will apply to all Science Olympiad Home School Teams who wish to attend to the Science Olympiad National Tournament and Science Olympiad will no longer qualify multi-county or multi-state Home School Teams. (This home school portion of the policy was adopted in 2008 and a three-year grace period of qualification followed.)