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Write a Guide for Your Country

Community guides

Every country runs its Biology Olympiad differently, and most of that knowledge lives in group chats and in the heads of last year's team. A BiOGuide country guide puts it in one public place for the next student. If you have been through your national olympiad, you are the best person to write it.

Email us about a guide See how it works

What a guide looks like

Each guide is a public article in the BiOBytes Testimonials tab, written in the contributor’s own words and wrapped in the same four parts. Read a few before you decide:

🇱🇻LatviaIBO 2025 silver medallist 🇭🇺HungaryIBO 2026 silver medallist 🇰🇬KyrgyzstanIBO 2026 bronze medallist 🇸🇰SlovakiaIBO 2026 bronze medallist
1

Your account

The selection path stage by stage, in your voice: format, question style, how you prepared, what you would change.

2

The official picture

Rounds, timing and organisers checked against the official sources, with the links shown so readers can verify them.

3

Exam-day strategy

The practical advice a syllabus will not give you: time, guessing, appeals, practicals.

4

How BiOGuide fits in

Where your advice meets real tools on the site: notes, past papers, the question bank.

Pros and cons

We would rather you decide with the full picture than be surprised later.

Why write one

  • Your name on a permanent page. You are credited as the author, with your photo and bio if you want them. It is a piece of writing you can link to in applications and on a CV.
  • Your country lights up. A published guide turns your country purple on the interactive map on the preparation page and adds a card to the country directory that links to you.
  • You help the student with nobody to ask. Many countries have no public explanation of their own selection path. Yours becomes the first result a younger student finds.
  • You write, we do the rest. We handle layout, the official-details research, the sources, the map and directory entries, and the links to relevant BiOGuide tools.
  • Free to read, no account needed. Guides are public, so classmates, teachers and coaches can use them too.

Things to weigh

  • It takes real time. A useful account of every stage is a few pages of careful writing. More detail makes a better guide.
  • It is public. Your name, country and result are published on the open web. You can use a first name only and skip the photo, and you can ask us to change or remove it later by email.
  • Accuracy matters. Students plan around these guides. Formats change year to year, so tell us which year you competed and we will make that clear on the page.
  • It is unpaid. BiOGuide is a free, volunteer-run project. The credit and the impact are the reward.
  • Open licence. Site content is published under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, so others may share and adapt it with credit, non-commercially.
  • AI use is disclosed. We use AI assistance for grammar clean-up and layout and say so openly in the project's attestation and involvement log. Your meaning and your voice stay yours.

How it works

  1. Check your country

    Look it up in the finder below. If a guide exists, read it; a second perspective can still be worth adding, so email us. If your country is not on the list at all, that is the best case: write to us anyway.

  2. Write your account, stage by stage

    Go through each round of your national olympiad, from the first school or online round to the final selection. For each one, cover as much of this as you can:

    • Who organises it, when it happens and what the format is (online, written, practical, camp)
    • How many people advance, and how competitive it feels
    • What the questions look like and what they reward
    • How you prepared, and which books, sites and past papers helped
    • Mistakes you made and what you would do differently

    Then add your exam-day strategy and anything you wish had existed when you were preparing. Plain, honest, specific advice beats polish.

  3. Point us to the official sources

    Send any official links you used. We cross-check them against your country's profile on the IBO country pages and the organiser's own site. Do not worry if you cannot find everything; if your account and the official description differ, we show both and flag it to you.

  4. Send it to us

    Email everything in the checklist below to r6394175@gmail.com. A Google Doc, a Word file or plain text in the email all work. Your English does not need to be perfect.

  5. Review, then publish

    We fix grammar and formatting without changing what you meant, and ask whenever something is unclear. You see the draft before it goes live. Once you approve, it is published and your country appears on the map and in the directory.

What to send us

Your account

The stage-by-stage write-up above, as a document or in the email itself.

Name, country and result

Exactly how you want to be credited, for example your first name only, and your result or role (such as IBO year and medal).

Which year you competed

So readers know how current your description of the rules is.

Official links and resources

The organiser's site, past papers, books and platforms you used.

A short bio (optional)

Two or three sentences. If you skip it, we draft one from your answers for you to approve.

A photo (optional)

A clear JPG with your face visible. Without one, a default avatar is shown.

Your consent

One line saying you are happy for it to be published under the name you gave, edited for grammar, under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Mention anything you want kept private.

Collaborations

Partner with us on your country's guide

A guide is stronger when the people who run the olympiad stand behind it. If you represent a national STEM or biology society, an olympiad committee or alumni association, a student science organisation, or a school or university STEM club, we would like to hear from you.

A special mention

Partner organisations are credited by name in their country's guide article.

Shape the guide

Check the official details, supply first-hand information, or co-write it with the students you work with.

Reach more students

Point your community to a guide that stays free and public for everyone preparing.

Partnerships are agreed case by case, directly over email. Tell us who you are, which country you represent and what you have in mind, and we will take it from there.

Email us about a partnership

Is your country covered?

Purple countries already have a firsthand guide written by someone from that country. Green countries have an official outline from us and are waiting for a firsthand author. Select a green or open country to start an email with the country filled in. Not on the list? Write to us anyway.

Loading countries...

Common questions

Do I have to be an IBO medallist?
Most guides so far come from IBO medallists, but what matters is that you have first-hand experience of your national selection path. If you have competed at national level, or coach students who do, email us with a line about your background and we will tell you whether it fits.
Can I write in my own language?
Guides are published in English so students everywhere can use them. If writing in English is the obstacle, send your account in your own language and tell us; we will talk through the options over email.
How much of my writing will you change?
Grammar, spelling and formatting. We do not rewrite your opinions or your advice. If a sentence is ambiguous, we ask you what you meant instead of guessing.
Can I stay partly anonymous?
Yes. Use a first name only, skip the photo and leave out anything you consider private. You can also ask us to edit or remove your guide later.
Does my country already have a guide?
Check the finder above. If it does, you are still welcome to get in touch: formats change and a second account can be valuable, but we will agree how to handle it together first.

Ready, or just curious?

Send your doubts, questions, collaboration ideas, or your finished deliverables to the same address.

r6394175@gmail.com