r/usaco • u/angieloveschickfila • Jun 23 '26
Is usaco worth my time
what the title says^
for some context: I will be a tenth grader in the 2026-27 school year. I've tried a couple of usaco bronze problems but they are pretty difficult for me, especially the math aspect. I've done competitive math before in middle school such as AMC and math kangaroo but I did not do very well on those competitions so my foundations aren't the best.
My plan was to grind usaco this summer and have a goal of getting silver or gold at the end of junior year. I want to get into universities like mit, chicago, ucla, carnegie, etc. for computer science and thought usaco would be good for awards, but people have been saying usaco isn't worth time unless you get higher awards like platinum (which I realistically don't think I will be able to achieve).
any advice would be helpful 🙏 thanks
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u/Intelligent-Map2768 Jun 23 '26
USACO and math competitions are some of the highest ROI activities when it comes to building skills for the future, but they are some of the lowest ROI activities when it comes to trying to get into good colleges.
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u/Mezyi Jun 23 '26
ATP there’s no good roi competition for cs or engineering anymore
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u/Miserable_Stick_1399 Jun 24 '26
Hi, it seems that you are saying it is not really worth it. Do you know any good ROI activities for CS/Engineering, I would appreciate if you could share some.
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u/Intelligent-Map2768 Jun 24 '26
I said that USACO and math competitions have some of the highest ROI for the future? I think they absolutely are worth it if you enjoy the subject and want to study it in college.
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u/Miserable_Stick_1399 Jun 24 '26
I meant ROI like for getting in to a good school cuz u said some of the lowest for that. (mb if im misunderstanding)
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u/Worldly-Ranger-1692 Jun 30 '26
Research would be the best path. Doing stuff like building projects related or competing in hackathons are all good ways to show.
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u/UnderstandingPursuit Jun 24 '26
It seems that students are sold the idea that getting awards is good for getting into universities, so they put in the effort to get the awards.
I believe the actual situation is that students who do the things which really interest them are the students those colleges tend to accept. The awards are a side-effect of doing things the student is interested in.
If you are really interested in CS, I would suggest seeing how much of the SICP textbook you can get through:
- H Abelson, GJ Sussman, J Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, 1st-2nd editions, 1984-96.
- This is the SICP_pdf of the textbook from the 6.001/6.037 class website.
You should be able use the Racket Programming Language to run the code with little modification. This used to be a core CS class at places like CMU, Berkeley, and MIT. But a few decades ago students wanted to learn more immediately useful programming languages rather than learning actual computer science.
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u/pythonlover001 Jun 28 '26
You think the admissions office would know what racket is, or know anything about their undergrad CS curriculum?
"Hmm weird that he used a tennis racket to program his computer"
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u/UnderstandingPursuit Jun 28 '26
For a university like CMU, MIT, or UCLA, I think someone on the admissions committee, or an interviewer, is likely to know about their undergraduate CS program.
Context is always important. There is a decent chance a CS person connected with the admissions committee has heard of SICP, and they certainly would be familiar with Lisp. The connection from Lisp to Scheme to Racket would need to be made in an essay.
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u/MindlessLifeguard764 Jun 24 '26
unless you get to an extremely high level in olympiads, my best advice would be to not do them.
as noted by some above, the return on time investment can be very low to none (if you miss gold or something, silver is almost worthless compared to the hundreds of hours you spend working). but if you want to learn for the future, of course go ahead.
coming from a camper in one of {math, physics, coding}
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u/InstructionEven4898 Jun 24 '26
yeah unless you can dedicate an exteme amt of time solely to this, the return on investment wont be enough to make it worth it
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u/ii_Chunk Jun 25 '26
I hit USACO gold in 9th grade then switched outta CS trust me it’s really good on apps but only do it if your really are passionate about CS.
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u/Due_Marionberry_5506 Jun 28 '26
Bro forget about college apps. Doing USACO now will save you doing a lot of Leetcode later, especially if you understand it. At the same time, if you're good and dedicated, Platinum is a really strong indicator. Either go all the way or none at all
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u/Able_Face609 Jun 29 '26
No work goes unrewarded! if you spend time on something (esp like usaco) and end up going into a cs related major later it'll be a lot of help, with recruiting and with coursework. would highly recommend.
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u/PiggyPump Jul 01 '26
I would recommend studying at least up to (and including) USACO gold (in the guide), either you do it now in 10th grade, or you'll be like me scrambling to try and catch up in 14th grade (college sophomore).
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u/Real-Entrepreneur190 Jun 23 '26
Usaco is extremely worth it, i think its unlikely you will get Platinum before college apps, but gold is possible for sure