A survey of K-12 STEM Competitions for Science & Engineering

The days of the proverbial Volcano Science Project for kids' science fairs are long gone. Replacing this are wildly sophisticated STEM projects being submitted to a number of very serious and professionally managed K-12 STEM competitions. This blog post takes an inventory of the largest and most well-known K-12 STEM competitions,  so that you can orient yourself to the world of "kids' STEM" and begin planning your STEM student's potential journey.          

The goal of this post is to summarize what competitions are out there. Strategies on how to best compete, find good projects, and learn what others are doing are covered elsewhere in this site.

We'll split STEM competitions into Middle School and High School competitions:

Middle School STEM Competitions

 1) The Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge & it's Tributary Science Fairs

First some general background: there are "one-off" science fairs, typically at the national level, which you can enter directly without any prior qualification requirements. And then there are STEM/science competitions at the national level which require competing and qualifying first in a local  "feeder" (or "tributary") STEM competition.

The Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge is a prestigious middle school STEM competition which requires qualifying first by competing in a local "feeder" STEM fair that is sponsored/endorsed by the Society for Science, a non-profit which manages and establishes rules for many of the nation's STEM competitions. In the "Find a Feeder Fair" link below, you can find a local STEM competition for your geographic region, and if you compete and place in the top ~10% of that competition you will earn a nomination to enter the annual Thermo Fisher Scientific JIC.

More Info on Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge

Find a 'Feeder' Fair to Qualify for Thermo Fisher JIC

As you can see, it's quite an undertaking to compete in this JIC, as it basically requires entering two sequential competitions with a significant project in order to be competitive. 

 2) The 3M Young Scientist Challenge 

The 3M Young Scientist Challenge is a "one-off" prestigious national level STEM competition which can be entered directly, and does not require competing in a qualifying competition first. This competition is extremely competitive and the top 10 finalists compete for the top 3 spots annually in a second round finalist competition at the 3M headquarters each Fall.

Info on 3M Young Scientist Challenge

There are both pros and cons for these two styles of competition ("one-off" versus "local-feeder-progressing -to-nationals"): 

The local-feeder style presents a qualifying barrier to compete in the more prestigious national level competition, but being local your student typically has a higher chance to place with some sort of accolade / award level achievement in the local competition, with the additional benefit that subsequent entry into the national competition is considered prestigious and resume-worthy in itself. The downside is it's a longer path to the national level competition.

The national level competitions with no qualifying feeder required allow you access to enter a prestigious national competition directly with no barrier, but it will generally be more difficult to earn an accolade such as becoming a finalist or semi-finalist, and so your student is less likely to come away with some earned title of having finished in the finals, or with some official distinction. 

High School STEM Competitions

3) The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair & it's Tributary Science Fairs

The Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (Regeneron ISEF, hereafter) is a prestigious high school STEM competition which requires qualifying first by competing in a local "feeder" STEM fair that is sponsored by the Society for Science, a non-profit which manages and establishes rules for many of the nation's STEM competitions. Because of this qualifying structure, the level of project quality of all the STEM projects in Regeneron ISEF is astonishingly high. You can find more info in the links below, including how to find a qualifying "feeder" science fair local to your geography. One thing to note is that for Regeneron ISEF you can in principle qualify (by doing well in a feeder STEM fair) in any of the 4 years of high school, and if you are willing to compete each year this gives you "4 shots on goal," although of course this is a huge amount of work.

Info on Regeneron ISEF

Find a Local "Feeder" STEM Fair to Qualify for Regeneron ISEF

4) The MIT Think Scholars Program

This is a prestigious annual STEM competition in the "one-off" style, i.e. requiring no prior qualification in order to enter. One unique feature of this competition is that the entry project is not a complete, finished project (like all the other competitions we have covered), but rather a comprehensive proposal for an advanced project (almost like a scientist submitting an NSF or NIH grant proposal). However, in order to be competitive, it should be noted that most student contestants will submit with their proposal some 'preliminary results' that are often a significant portion of a completed project, which helps lend credibility that the student can actually finish the ambitious project proposal in what amounts to only a 6-month working period after submission.

Here is the site for information and registration in MIT Think:

Info on the MIT Think Scholars Program

5) The Regeneron Science Talent Search

The Regeneron Science Talent Search (Regeneron STS hereafter), is reserved for high school seniors in the United States. This competition is of the "one-off" style, meaning there are no requirements for qualifying in other competitions first. This Regeneron STS is not to be confused with the Regeneron ISEF competition (detailed above in  (3)) which is a "feeder style" STEM competition, and can be qualified for in any year of high school, whereas the Regeneron STS is reserved for students in their senior year. 

A small bit of history: The Regeneron Science Talent Search began in 1942, and was known for its first 57 years as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and then as the Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS) from 1998 through 2016, when it became the Regeneron STS.  This competition is widely regarded as the most prestigious STEM competition in the U.S., so much so that a top-10 (or even top-40) finish is likely to be a golden ticket into the most prestigious U.S. universities, assuming the student's grades and test scores are also top notch. The top 300 students in this competition are known as Regeneron Scholars, and finishing in this top 300 group is highly prestigious. Many Regeneron STS entries are worthy of scientific publications, sometimes at the level of PhD thesis work, and some students have managed to find research affiliations with top Universities in order to conduct their research projects. 

Info on Regeneron Science Talent Search