See what you can enter.Then go and win it.
Competitions, olympiads, courses and programmes you can actually enter — at your age, from where you live, with the real deadline and the real cost. Tell us your year at school and the list is yours.
Free, all of it. Applying to university too? See a sample admission report
Open right now
Live from the catalogWharton Global High School Investment Competition
FreeCompetition34 days leftWho can enter: Ages 14–18 (grades 9–12)
Closes Sep 11, 2026
Journal of Emerging Investigators
FreeResearchOpen nowWho can enter: Middle- and high-school authors worldwide — free to submit
AMC 10/12 (math)
Fee variesOlympiad68 days leftWho can enter: No minimum age — AMC 10: grade ≤10 & under 17.5; AMC 12: grade ≤12 & under 19.5
Closes Oct 15, 2026
CS50's Introduction to AI with Python (Harvard)
FreeCourseOpen nowWho can enter: Anyone worldwide — free to audit; some prior Python (CS50-level) helps
Four of 156. Every link and date is checked by hand — we never show a countdown for a date we can’t stand behind.
156
opportunities in the catalog
Olympiads, competitions, courses, research and summer programmes — international and national.
92
cost nothing to enter
And the ones that do cost say so, in money, on the card. Nothing is filed under 'free' that isn't.
42
you can start tonight
No deadline to wait for — self-paced courses, rolling submissions, contests that run all year.
5
countries in the admission report
US, Italy, Hong Kong, the UAE and Korea — if and when you want that part.
How it works
Two questions, then the list.
No account, no questionnaire, no waiting on a model to think. The matching is plain arithmetic against rules we’ve read off the organisers’ own pages.
- 1
Say what year you're in
One tap. Almost every entry rule in the catalog is an age or a school-year rule, so this single answer already removes most of what isn't for you.
- 2
Say what you're into
Pick your fields — or leave it blank and see everything. If you genuinely don't know yet, a two-minute quiz will suggest a starting point rather than demand an answer.
- 3
Get the list you can actually enter
Each one with who can enter, what it really costs, and when it closes. Nothing is hidden behind an account, and nothing shows a countdown we can't stand behind.
Already know your year? Start here — it takes about ten seconds
The problem
The lists exist. They’re just not for you.
Search “olympiads for school students” and you get hundreds of results. Almost none of them tell you the one thing that decides everything: whether someone your age, in your country, can enter at all.
Written for someone older
Most of what gets listed turns out to be for university students, or for one country's nationals. You find that out after reading the rules — if the rules are even linked.
Dead links and last year's dates
A deadline that has already passed is worse than no deadline at all. So we check every link, and only show a countdown for a date confirmed against the organiser's own page.
“Free” that isn’t
Free to learn, but the certificate costs money. Free to enter, but only round one. Those are the two that catch students out, so each gets its own label instead of hiding under 'free'.
Where it leads
“And then what?” — answered before you enter, not after.
The guide runs the whole chain: what you like → the areas of work it opens → the countries and cities that work lives in → and what you can enter from home without moving anywhere. Every one of them states its catch, not just its brochure.
33areas of work
Real job titles inside each one — never a single prescribed profession per field.
Open →Step 219countries in full
Money, admissions, after-study rules, cities. Trade-offs outnumber strengths, on purpose.
Open →Step 337cities to work in
Including Almaty, Astana, Tashkent and Tbilisi — the map does not stop at the countries we profile.
Open →Step 46routes from home
Ways in that need no visa and no move — for when leaving isn't the plan, or isn't possible yet.
Open →Honest by design
We would rather tell you something is closed, expensive or out of reach than let you find out yourself in three months. Unknown facts never remove an opportunity from your list; unverified dates never get a countdown; and nothing is called free unless it is.
When you’re ready
And an honest read on your university applications.
Optional, free, and separate from everything above. Fill in a profile and you get a competitiveness score out of 100, per-school admission ranges, your grades and tests against each school’s admitted middle 50%, and a prioritised list of what to fix — across the US, Italy, Hong Kong, the UAE and Korea.
Your standing
Previewcompetitiveness
Benchmarked against real, named schools.
Not a vibe check against “top universities”. Every range is tied to a specific school’s published admitted-student data, in every country the report covers.
Schools the report benchmarks you against
Running a competition, hackathon or programme?
Post it under your own name, logo and verification tick, and it appears on the list students actually read — with your deadline treated as the organiser’s own word, not a scrape.
Questions, answered
The honest answers, before you start.
What is this, exactly?
A checked list of competitions, olympiads, courses and programmes school students can enter — filtered to the ones open to you at your age, from where you live. You give your school year, we give the list.
Do I need an account?
No. The eligibility checker on the Opportunities page works signed out and gives you the full answer. An account only adds the things that need memory: saving what you're doing, tracking a deadline, and the optional admission report.
Is it free?
Compass is free — all of it. Some of the opportunities themselves are not, and that is exactly why every entry carries a cost label. 'Free to learn, the certificate costs money' is the case students get caught by, so it gets its own label rather than being filed under free.
How do I know a deadline is right?
Because we only show a countdown when we've confirmed the date against the organiser's own page for the current cycle. Everything else says 'dates not announced yet' or 'open now'. A guessed deadline is worse than no deadline: it makes a student miss a real one.
I'm 13. Is there anything for me?
Yes, and you'll see the ones you're too young for as well — labelled with the year you become eligible. Knowing what to aim for is worth something; being quietly shown nothing is not. We never hide an opportunity just because a fact about you is missing.
What happened to the university assessment?
It's still here, and it's still free — it's now one thing you can opt into rather than the gate you had to pass first. It reads your profile against admitted-student data for the US, Italy, Hong Kong, the UAE and Korea, and gives per-school ranges with the honest number, not a flattering one.
See what you can enter this year.
One question — what year are you in — and you get the list. 156 opportunities, every link and date checked by hand.
Free, all of it. No account needed to start.