University High School freshman Vishnu Iyer was one of several hundred Indiana students to sit for the 2019 Indiana Section ACS U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad (USNCO) Exam in March. He took the first-year high school exam and scored second place, which qualified him to sit for the USNCO national exam this weekend at Butler University.
The national exam is hosted by ACS Local Sections across the country. The exam includes a multiple choice section, a problem solving section, and a lab practical, and Iyer’s exam will be administered at Butler University on Saturday, April 21. More than 1,000 students nationwide will compete.
“My overall goal is to place in the top 20 out of about 1,000 in the national exam this Saturday at Butler University,” said Iyer. “If I achieve this goal, I will be able to travel to the U.S. Air Force Academy during the summer to learn more chemistry. From there, I will have a chance to be selected for the international team, though that is highly unlikely because I am only a freshman.”
Though this is Iyer’s first year at University High School, it is the third time he’s taken the local exam. As a 7th grader at Sycamore School, he earned an honorable mention, and he earned 3rd place as an 8th grader, both on the high school exams. This year’s exam comes following four years of preparation in a tutoring class, where he did many problems and read hundreds of pages of text.
Good luck to Vishnu as he advances in the USNCO competition!