How does a student get to the IOI?
Through their own country. Each country sends a team of up to four students, selected through its national computing contests, and there is no application route of any kind. That is why the working target for essentially every student is the national olympiad, and why the first thing we establish is what that contest is called in your country and when its first round runs.
What is the IOI format?
Two competition days, three tasks on each day, five hours per day. Contestants compete individually and there is no official team ranking. National rounds are frequently built to resemble this, which is why five-hour endurance and subtask strategy are trained here rather than assumed.
How much does the training cost?
A small batch is USD 100 a month and one to one is USD 150 a month, billed in US dollars. These are the same figures as every other course we teach outside India, because there is no reason a coaching hour should cost more for carrying the word olympiad.
Can you get my child selected?
No. Selection runs through your national body and its own contests, and we have no relationship with any of them. What a coach controls is whether the student arrives at those contests able to compete, and that is the whole of the job.
Which language should they use?
C++ at this level, almost always. The time limits favour it, the standard library saves implementation time, and the great majority of editorial and training material assumes it. Java is viable and Python becomes limiting above national level.
What age should a student start?
Serious training usually begins around thirteen or fourteen, and the constraint is programming fluency rather than age. A student still fighting the syntax cannot compete on reasoning, so the honest first step for many is a year of proper programming rather than contest coaching.
Is USACO useful if we are not in the United States?
Very. It is the best-organised training ladder in the world for this material and its division structure gives an honest measure of where a student actually is, which national contests often do not. We use it heavily even for students whose target is a different country's olympiad.
What is subtask strategy and why do you emphasise it?
Olympiad scoring gives partial credit by subtask, so a competitor must decide which subtasks to attempt, in what order, and when to abandon one. It is a strategic skill sitting on top of the algorithmic one, most students never train it deliberately, and it is the cheapest of the three components to improve.
When is the IOI and where is it held?
It moves every year, so we deliberately do not print it here. The official site is the correct source and it stays correct, which a tutoring page would not. Your national body will also publish the selection calendar that actually affects you.
How many hours a week does this take?
Realistically eight to fifteen including the classes, and more in the weeks around a round. This is a multi-year commitment rather than a term of tuition, and we would rather say that clearly than discover it with you in month four.
Is it worth it if my child never makes the team?
The places are genuinely scarce, so most students who train seriously will not be selected, and any honest coach says so at the start. What the training reliably produces is deep algorithmic ability, real implementation speed and the habit of sustained independent work, which are worth having on their own terms.
Do you train for the national round or only the IOI?
The national round, in almost every case, because that is the contest that actually determines anything. IOI-level material comes in when a student is genuinely near selection, and bringing it in earlier is one of the commonest ways a season is wasted.
My child is strong but has plateaued. What usually causes that?
Three things, in order of frequency: implementation speed rather than knowledge, no deliberate subtask strategy, and never having read an official solution properly to a problem they failed. All three are more fixable than learning another algorithm family, which is what most students try instead.
What happens in the free first class?
A real olympiad-level problem, attempted with the clock running, followed by a conversation about the national route. What we are looking for is not whether it is solved but where the time went, because that identifies which of the three components is actually limiting this student.
What happens after we send the form?
A mentor calls you at a reasonable hour to arrange the free class. Nothing is charged and no card is requested. Tell us the country on the call, because the selection route differs everywhere and it is the first thing we need to look up together.
