What is the Policy Olympiad?
The Policy Olympiad is an individual tournament where participants will be asked to evaluate and research global politics, AI, and social media, to then articulate their findings in an article format.
Participants will submit their article (with a 1000 word limit for the national round and a 1500 word limit for the international round) to info@policyolympiad.org.
The Olympiad will be entirely online and is NOT a team tournament. It is designed to encourage creativity and promote an in depth understanding of literature.
Policy Olympiad is the benchmark of social science excellence. It is designed to give high school students a chance to show their skills beyond the classroom.
We specifically designed the Policy Olympiad to have university level questions that are best answered with a university style of approach.
Don't have a collegiate level understanding of how the world works?
Don't know what you want to study in college?
Don't want to pursue a degree in social science?
Thats okay!
The Policy Olympiad is the tournament that will allow you to explore your own understanding, because knowing your strengths and knowing your capabilities are one in the same.
Register for your chance to become an Olympiad Champion!
"Olympiads give students opportunities to show depth in their academic interest outside of the classroom and help admissions officers recognize the applicant’s passion for their area of study. At highly selective universities, it is increasingly common for the top admitted applicants to boast multiple international and national honors which can be harder to find for humanities students."
— Ria Jagasia, Former Johns Hopkins Admissions Officer
Policy Olympiad Judges
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Brenna Salkin
MPhil - Politics and International Studies - University of Cambridge
BA - Human, Social, and Political Sciences, Politics and International Relations - University of Cambridge
After completing her undergraduate degree in Human, Social, and Political Sciences Brenna earned her MPhil degree in Politics and International Studies, during which she worked for the undergraduate admissions office at King’s College, and was the managing editor of the Cambridge Journal of Political Affairs.
Dr. Erica A. Farmer
PhD, Anthropology - University College London
MA, Anthropology- George Washington University
JD, Law- Stanford Law School
AB, Romance Languages and Literatures- Harvard University
Dr. Farmer's approach to policy issues is informed by her work as a law and society scholar studying intersections between law, anthropology, and culture. She specializes in ethnographic research, textual analysis of legal and archival documentation, and discourse analysis, with a strong focus on gaps between policy, practice, and decisionmaking. She has taught and/or lectured at multiple universities, including Georgetown University, University College London, George Washington University, and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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Dr. Hope K. McCoy
Ph.D. in Education, University of California, Los Angeles
M.A. in Education, University of California, Los Angeles
Division of Higher Education & Organizational Change
B.S. in Psychology, Northwestern University
Two-time Fulbright recipient
Hope McCoy is a Lecturer in International Relations and in the Civic, Liberal, and Global Education program at Stanford University. McCoy’s research agenda focuses on the sociocultural dimensions of development studies, with an emphasis on international education, global citizenship, and the role of cultural diplomacy in geopolitics. Dr. McCoy's first book (2023) entitled: "From Congo to GONGO: Higher Education, Critical Geopolitics, and the New Red Scare '' was one of the winners of the Peter Lang Emerging Scholars Competition in Black Studies.
Anna Mark
B.S in Political Science, University of Utah
M.Ed. in Social Foundations of Education, University of Virginia
Education Policy Fellow Alumna, Institute for Educational Leadership
Professional Certificate in Data Science Essentials, University of California, Berkeley
Anna Mark’s research centers on improving educational outcomes for children with disabilities and their families. She has led initiatives at some of the nation’s leading nonprofits, authored 11 white papers and implementation guides, and presented across 15 national, state, and local conferences on special education, instructional quality, and the power of data to drive equitable outcomes.