Hi everyone! I am not really sure whether this post is allowed in this subreddit, but I feel it's worth a shot. :)) (Mods, please don't ban me)

I'm a high school student who's REALLY interested in doing some astrophysics research. I don't mind whether it's mostly data crunching or more theoretical/hardcore physics. I've had some experience with both, and I'd love the chance to work on a real research project.

For some context, here are a few things that might give you an idea of my background:

1. I'm on the US IOAA Team for 2026.
2. I'm reasonably experienced in CS (USACO Platinum), and I've spent a good amount of time working with Python and data analysis.
3. I'm reasonably strong in math (AIME score of 13, around the top 5% of AIME participants).
4. I'll also be representing the USA at the IAPhO in Indonesia this year.

I genuinely want to experience astrophysics research before I start college so I can figure out whether it's something I'd like to pursue as a major. More than anything, I just want to spend more time working on a subject I genuinely love.

I may not have the specialized knowledge to make major contributions immediately, but I learn quickly, and I'm willing to put in the work. I really believe I'd become a net positive for any project after getting up to speed.

If anyone here is involved in astrophysics or physics research, I'd really appreciate hearing from you! Feel free to DM me or leave a comment. Any advice, opportunities, or pointers would mean a lot.

And if any academics are reading this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how a high school student can move beyond olympiads and get involved in real research. If you have a project I could contribute to, that would be great.

Thanks so much for reading! :)

Hi everyone!

I'm a high school student who's REALLY interested in doing some astrophysics research. I don't mind whether it's mostly data crunching or more theoretical/hardcore physics. I've had some experience with both, and I'd love the chance to work on a real research project.

For some context, here are a few things that might give you an idea of my background:

1. I'm on the US IOAA Team for 2026.
2. I'm reasonably experienced in CS (USACO Platinum), and I've spent a good amount of time working with Python and data analysis.
3. I'm reasonably strong in math (AIME score of 13, around the top 5% of AIME participants).
4. I'll also be representing the USA at the IAPhO in Indonesia this year.

I genuinely want to experience astrophysics research before I start college so I can figure out whether it's something I'd like to pursue as a major. More than anything, I just want to spend more time working on a subject I genuinely love.

I may not have the specialized knowledge to make major contributions immediately, but TRUST me when I say that I can learn quickly, and I'm willing to put in the work. I really believe I'd become a net positive for any project after getting up to speed.

If anyone here is involved in astrophysics or physics research, I'd really appreciate hearing from you! Feel free to DM me or leave a comment. Any advice, opportunities, or pointers would mean a lot.

And if any academics are reading this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how a high school student can move beyond olympiads and get involved in real research. If you happen to have a project that you think I could contribute to, that would honestly be amazing.

Thanks so much for reading! :))

Welcome to Contest 2! USAMO Guide's second official contest is live, and you can register now. Whether it's your first contest or your fiftieth, this one's built to be low-pressure: log in when it works for you, solve what you can, and see where you land.

• A 24-hour window, so you can start whenever fits your schedule.
• 90 minutes to solve 18 problems once you begin.
• Difficulties from 1000 to 2300, with approachable problems for beginners and harder ones for stronger competitors.
• Rated for participants below 1600.

Scoring :
Problems are labeled A through R, worth points by position. Problem k is worth 100 × k, so A is 100, B is 200, on up to R (problem 18) at 1800. Max possible score: 100 × (18 × 19) / 2 = 17,100 points. We'll run these regularly. If you competed in Contest 1, this is where you'll see your progress. If it's your first, this sets your baseline for the contests to come. Either way, prep resources are at https://usamoguide.com/

How to Register?
Click the contest link below -> Sign up/Sign in -> Click the Register button.
https://contests.usamoguide.com/contest/21495aef-2342-4c68-8a82-1ceea39f94c9

Note that you will be notified via email one day before the contest starts, so that you don't miss out on a fun time solving problems.

Good luck, and we'll see you on the leaderboard.

Hey! I'm the founder of USAMO Guide (usamoguide.com), a free, open-source platform helping students prep for math competitions (AMC 8 through USAMO/USAJMO). We have had a great 1st term (3 months) with almost 100k users already.

I'm looking to select one dedicated illustrator to own our visual identity, think Duolingo-style: a mascot character, social media pics, achievement/milestone graphics. Bold flat-color, expressive style.

Is this gonna be just busy-work?? NAH! Although it is UNPAID because the organization is run by volunteers, it would definitely be a legitimate extracurricular activity, as your work would be viewed by tens of thousands of students all over the world every week.

What is the offer?

1. A really NICE title (e.g. Lead Illustrator / Art Director) on an active team with defined roles
2. Verifiable work that would be live on a public site, in a public GitHub repo, with your name on it.
3. A lot of creative latitude on concept/style. I will not be handing you a locked spec.

If you're building a portfolio or want an EC with great substance behind it, drop a comment or DM with your work; even sketches and style samples are totally fine. It doesn't need to be anything polished

Hey! I'm the founder of USAMO Guide (usamoguide.com), a free, open-source platform helping students prep for math competitions (AMC 8 through USAMO/USAJMO). We have had a great 1st term (3 months) with almost 100k users already.

I'm looking to select one dedicated illustrator to own our visual identity, think Duolingo-style: a mascot character, social media pics, achievement/milestone graphics. Bold flat-color, expressive style.

Is this gonna be just busywork?? NAH! Although it is unpaid since the organization itself is run by volunteers, it would be a legitimate extracurricular activity, as your work would be published for tens of thousands of students worldwide to see each week.

What is the offer?

1. A really NICE title (e.g. Lead Illustrator / Art Director) on an active team with defined roles
2. Verifiable work that would be live on a public site, in a public GitHub repo, with your name on it.
3. A lot of creative latitude on concept/style. I will not be handing you a locked spec.

If you're building a portfolio or want an EC with great substance behind it, drop a comment or DM with your work; even sketches and style samples are totally fine. It doesn't need to be anything polished.

Demographics:
Asian male
Race: Indian
Citizen: USA
Low income: No income at all

Academics:
GPA: 97%
APs (Note: All self-studied; school doesn't offer them): 5s in AP Calc BC, AP Physics C: Mech and AP Physics C: E&M, AP Microeconomics, and a 4 in AP Stats.
1540 SAT (800M/740R) (Single Sitting)
Class Rank: 3rd of 110
Note: School doesn't focus on olympiads but rather on JEE. (I Live in India)

Major: Maths + Physics

Extracurricular activities:

1. Founder, Admin & CTO of Math Olympiad Guide (11-12): does 100k+ views monthly and has helped tens of thousands of students worldwide.
2. Author: Olympiad Math Prep Book (10-12): 20k+ Downloads across 40+ countries; Recognized for quality and usefulness by several olympiad coaching institutions. Also taught ~20 students personally into qualifying for AIME and getting decent scores there, to find what mistakes many students make.
3. Founder & Developer of Education SaaS Platform (9-10): Solo-built and launched an education-focused SaaS platform serving 500+ users; streamlined access to academic resources and student tools. Hosted several charity runs in which we donated 3000+ books to orphanages and government libraries within my city (got recognized by local news; did this one to solve an ongoing problem in my community back then)
4. Research: 1st author on a research paper done with Caltech undergrads on chess mech interp (AI/CS-related) (Ongoing, not published yet)
5. President at Speech and Debate Club that won 2 international awards.
6. Music (Lifelong): Self-taught Guitar/Drums/Keyboard played as well as sang (I do vocal + keyboard mainly) in local bands and several stage performances with audiences of 300+ on the usual. (Note: These are quite simple songs and performances; they won't be technically very hard) (Also have a YT channel with 3k subs and ~1 mil views)
7. Tech Intern - Tech Company (9th): Practically redesigned their whole website and made the user flow much more efficient.

Awards:

Representing USA at IOAA this year, NAC Gold Medalist.

Math Olympiads: AMC 12 x2 (DHR last year, and HR this year with a 144..... Bruhh)
AIME: 13 (top 5%), RMOx2 (AIME eqv of India), (Note: I can't qualify for USAMO under recent rules as I reside in India rn.)

USACO Platinum with a certified perfect score in USACO Gold.

PMC (It's a math contest conducted by UPenn): Ranked within the top 10 in Individuals, and my team ranked 1st, Purple Comet: Team got International 1st with a perfect score.

All INDIA Rank No. 1 in a very popular math contest here. Won a good cash prize + the Laptop I'm writing this from.

4x Merit Scholarship of 50% at school (maximum they offer) for exceptional academic performance. (for all years of schooling)

Sports:

Basketball - Played in the District team in 8th-9th grade
Chess - 2000+ Elo on Lichess Rapid

Note: This is probably my last chance-me post; I posted this here again with the updates only cuz huge updates related to IOAA recently.

Ik MIT doesn't admit by major, but I still have a weird doubt. I will be representing the USA for IOAA this year, and I have also done a LOT of math olympiads, research, and several really nice projects related to math and educational equity that I will be really proud of irrespective of how my applications go. I would just like some advice on taking mixed majors or double majors, and on choosing my major in general. I am thinking something like applied maths/physics, maybe?

Also, given how rigorous the IOAA selection process was this year, I am sure I would either get a silver or gold medal; would this create problems if I am applying as applied maths?

Welp, title! There are no sources of income for my family except the small amount I myself bring to the table at the moment (~1k$ a month rn as ad revenue from my websites). My dad is quite unlikely to get a job soon, too. (We are probably gonna be using our savings rn.)

Till now, we were looking at a yearly ~30k EFC (previous income was also only ~60k). Now, I think it has to drop to like ~10k, or we would have to sell our lands and stuff to pay that. (not preferable)

How is this going to affect my applications? Is there any advice I should keep in mind while my family goes through this phase?

What am I filing as income amount in the application? Is it just whatever I earn?
How should I notify the AOs of all these sudden events? (Bro, I HATE AI for doing this to so many people)

I'll probably also be trying to help out the current income by trying to make the website paid or something. But, we are doomed to use our savings rn (My income is very much NOT a livable amount for a family of 5 gng 🥀)

I am also worried the decrease in EFC might put my application in jeopardy, as although being decent in academics
- Ranked among the top 10 in the USA for a major Olympiad (made Camp and scored high in TST), along with USACO Plat and USAMO, as well as having decent publications and really impactful extracurriculars in my niche/major.

I am a CIS MALE, US citizen living in India who loves STEM (NOT CS). (I am considered Domestic for all schools except a few)

Ik it's kinda late into the year rn, if hypothetically I retake my grade (despite being 3rd in the class of ~200 members), because I am one year younger than everybody in my class (I was born in January 2010, and am in 12th grade rn, will be applying to college in 3-4 months if everything goes normally)

I have decent stuff for protfolio, but like my main concerns are these 2:

1. I will be pretty young at college
2. I wanna do olympiads for a year, taking a drop year is useless cuz you wont be allowed to do them, I made camp this year in 2 oly, so retaking a grade would allow me to try realistically for the team selection...

title....

Context: I am talking about one of IPHO/IOAA/ICHO/IBO

And for clarification, when I mean "basically a shoo-in" I mean given the rest of their profile is nice, and decent (a nice and smart kid from a normal town ahh, he can write decent essays but not much trauma sadly 🥀)

Note: The applicant is applying for the same major in which they represented the USA.

EDIT 1:
For comments asking about ECs and other contextual status,
I have made quite a lot of impact (We are counting impact around the million rn, so that should help you gauge it) with my ECs, also as someone pointed out in the comments, I am def the kinda kid who would help around, just generally interested in problem solving (quite evident from the fact that apart from the international olympiad, the other awards are usamo/several other uni math comps/usaco plat, etc.. (it's all a bunch of decent oly awards, I didn't camp in any other except the one told above tho, I am not orz enough lol)

Context-wise, I'm low-income (less than 40k income), ruralish area? DEF NOT a feeder school (school and parents were legit opposed to me doing olympiads, and my parents used to be literal farmers, so you can take a guess....)

Also, ngl, I am more than happy if I get in any t10 ngl, I did most of my stuff without college in mind, so I'm just lucky enough to be at this position rn. I'll be applying to all t20s for the "safety" reasons y'all mentioned!!

Thanks for the responses :)

Hi everyone! This isn't directly MIT-related, but MIT seems to match my vibe extremely (from the alumni friends and projects I have seen them do).

Well, for some context, I am a low-income, US citizen living in India, with the most indecisive brain on what major to choose.

For all of high school, I have been an Olympiad kid,
multiple selections to AIME, and it's Indian Eqv (even went till 13 in AIME this year, but couldn't qualify for USAMO due to residency issues).
Made the IOAA Selection Camp this year with a top 5 in the nation score (I hope to represent the USA soon, haha), USACO plat, many other college math comps (pmc/smt/etc) as well.

The activities I did for the past few years also aren't extremely related(?) (like an A math book I wrote, an open source math resource thing I found with thousands of users, a couple of club presidencies, a YouTube channel where I did popular song covers, played basketball and chess quite a LOT actually (2000+ ratings), a decently good research paper on chess mech interp I wrote with some caltech friends I made online?

This extremely unorganized/non-coherent problem is mainly due to my complete obliviousness to what I will do after high school for a very long time (up until 3-4 months ago), with me entering senior year rn :/

I was thinking maybe math + physics would be a decent choice due to me just generally liking math and physics, but like Idk if that would make too much sense in terms of college!? (honestly, I'm quite clueless, please help me)
I'm kinda spiraling recently about this, cuz I feel like I need to "prepare" myself for college admissions...

And please, this is not a chanceme post, Ik MIT is really hard to get into, I just need help on major choice :D

Future Aim: Make as much impact as possible on the world, maybe startups? research? something that would be useful to everyone even after I die, and also travel the world a lot (I legit don't give a singular damn about anything else)

Thanks to anyone who read this and to everyone who decide to spend their valuable time helping me here. Im truly grateful :D

Yes, you read the title correctly. Even after getting into USAMO eqv (INMO) and USACO Plat, I was flat-out rejected from every single summer program I applied to (YYGS, SSP, MITES, Assip). Maybe I should have applied to more reputable programs (we don't count acceptances from programs like LaunchX) or maybe written stronger essays. Obviously, I am not entitled to anything, but I was still hoping I would get in somewhere good, considering the awards (I have many more college comp awards in math to back me up) + decent ECs (top EC was my math platform with 50k+ monthly views and the book I wrote with 11k downloads).... ig, it was a very humbling experience (putting it lightly btw, I cried myself to sleep a lot due to ts)

Well.. today I got info that I'm getting an Oly medal for the exam I preppared for while getting rejected from all these programs, (YAY!! My first oly medal lol) + Maybe camp (t15 in Astro in the USA would be pretty okayish ig haha) (results for this arent announced yet, will update the post when they do in 2 days), As some wise man used to say, Everything works out in the end 😃

Lesson from the story: Just shut tf up, stop crying like me that you didn't get in, continue putting in the work, somehow everything will work out in the end!

Hopefully, I am motivating some people here; that is the intended purpose of this post. I hope whoever reads this will pray that I get into camp,

Thankuuu and Best Regards
-- scooby doodlily doooo

I took too many STEM APs for someone who must self-study all of them. Micro seemed cool, so I took it as well :/

Got a reminder today that I am registered for ts... Gonna follow the other posts already made to try cram up the entire damn syllabus in 2 days and get a 5 (I WANNA SWEEP!)

Please keep me accountable mis amigos

Demographics:

Asian male

Low income (~40k/yr): Significant Financial aid needed

Had to emigrate to India sometime around 1st grade (still I am a US citizen, so considered domestic for many unis.)

extremely rural until 5th grade, after that urban (was very weak academically + poor when we came to the city)

Academics:

3.98 UW, School doesn't calculate weighted (This is based on the A+/A/B/C/D/E/F grades which my school assigns, my 10th board marks is 97.8%)

5’s on 5 APs on top of CBSE (School doesn't offer AP courses, so I self-study for all of them and take them elsewhere)

1540 SAT (800M/740R) (Single Sitting) (Gonna retake in August and get a higher English score hopefully)

Top 3 of 42 (THE highest ranked class in all of my schools branches) and Top 5 of 5000 kids in my batch (the top-most batch in my school) (IIT-JEE prep school, so they rank wrt to all branches available in the nation) (School is about 11.5 hours each day, including Sundays (10 hours on Sundays alone lol, very less ikr), (and yes, we don't have holidays) 😞, ngl ts takes up tooo much of my time. (The other kids from my class have nothing apart from JEE prep, so they aren't applying to US unis)

Double major Math + Business

Extracurricular activities:

1) Founder, Admin & CTO — Math Education Org (11-12): 50k views/month recently; 6k users (65+ countries); managing a team of 30+ active builders, with partnerships and recognition from many ultra-large institutions in the relevant niche. Sponsored by a quant firm. (This project is like ultra-active rn, with the user base projected to reach 50-100k before college apps (lowballing, actually), and monthly web views prolly reaching 0.5 mil). (14 h/week)

2) Author: Olympiad Math Prep Book (10-12): 20k+ Downloads across 40+ countries; Recognised for great quality by leading math organisations in India (they made full videos about this). Personally taught 21 students (online) with 100% qualification rate into either AIME or RMO (AIME equivalent in India) (5-6 hours a week)

3) President—Debate/Speech Club: (10-12): 60+ members (some members had achieved top 5 in several international debate comps); ran workshops & training; managed outreach/content; Doubled membership of club during my terms.

4) Founder & Developer — Education SaaS Platform (9-10): Solo Built and launched an education-focused SaaS platform serving 500+ users; streamlined access to academic resources and student tools. Hosted several charity runs in which we donated 1500+ books to orphanages and government libraries within my city (got recognized by local news, and a BJP party member for this lol)

5) Musician & Lead Vocalist (6-11): Earned Trinity College London Grade 5 certification with distinction; self-taught guitar and drums; lead singer of school/local band performing multiple live events annually (400+ member audience in each); created music content surpassing 1M+ YouTube views.

6) Independent Research — QFin (9-12): Published on arxiv, built ML/stat models; MATLAB/Python analysis; ran optimizations, forward-testings; (Resulted in production of a financial tool used by 40+ traders) (ps: Started this to help my dad with investing. Only way to not let inflation eat up your savings these days :/) (Recently, I'm working with some IIT undergrads on this, might get it published on smtg more "prestigious" later, but unsure whether it will happen before applications end)

7) Tech Intern — Tech Company (10th)
Redesigned and developed entire UI, automated many workflows (reduced video creation time by 90% and average user application time from 12 mins to 2.5 mins, and doubled user retention during applications. Worked very closely with the founding team, who appreciated my work greatly.

Awards:

1. Math Olympiads: AMC 12 (DHR last year, and HR this year with a 144..... lowk wtf were those cutoffs), AIME: 13 (top 5%), RMOx2 (AIME eqv of India), INMOx1 (USAMO eqv of India)
2. (Note: I can't qualify for USAMO under recent rules as I live in India rn.)
3. Selected for Camp in one of the lower-tier Olympiads (US pipeline, not indian) (Astro, or AI, or Chem)
4. Computing Olympiad (USACO Platinum) with a certified perfect score in USACO Gold.
5. PMC (Conducted by UPenn): Ranked within the top 10 in Individuals, and my team ranked 1st, Purple Comet: Team got International 1st with a perfect score.
6. AIR 1 in a national math comp, got grand prize for perfect score. (Prize: the laptop I'm writing this post from lmao)
7. Merit Scholarship of 50% (maximum they offer) for exceptional academic performance.

Sports:

Basketball — Played and won at several District-level tournaments (8-9th grade)
Chess — 2000+ elo on Lichess Rapid

School list:

HYPSM & all ivies, GT, Caltech, Duke, UChicago, UC Berkeley, CMU, Oxford, IIT, NUS. (I can add more, but I need lots of financial aid for US unis, so Idk how practical other unis might be)
(Prolly gonna try keeping IIT/NUS/Oxford as backups as they require only grades/ranks)

Haven't been in this sub recently, but came back as I practically got f##ked by summer apps and the anxiety is getting to me... prolly just gonna lock in this summer for IIT-Prep to make sure I get some decent sub 300 AIR rank, so that even if US unis don't work out in my favour, I can always fall back on IITs/NUS.

Also, I kinda suck at writing (assuming this although people said they are decent cuz I got rejected from most of my summer apps), so I'm probably gonna take some outside help for that. If y'all have any other suggestions apart from the chance me on things like how I should list things better, or like describe things better, please say that as well (would appreciate it a lot 😃)

(Note: for some activities I listed 12 as well, it's because 12th grade starts here during jan itself)