Requesting Fee Waivers

Waivers help make competitions accessible for qualifying students, teams, and schools.

Individual / Team Fee Waivers

• For students in the US, ask your college counselor or school principal to email waivers@algoed.co from their official school email address.

  For students outside the US, ask your school principal to email waivers@algoed.co from their official school email address.

  In the email, include:

  • Student names and emails
  • Competition name and category
  • Confirmation that the student(s) have financial need

To ensure equity and fairness, each school is eligible for a maximum of one team fee waiver per competition, and each student may receive up to two fee waivers over the course of their school career.

For schools that do not have a custom-domain email address, the principal must provide a signed letter on official school letterhead containing all the required information. The letter should also be stamped with the school’s official seal or chop.

US High-Poverty Public School Waivers

US public schools where 90% or more of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch may apply for school-wide fee waiver access.

School-wide waivers are available for all competitions with a quiz-based first round. Competitions with a project-submission-based first round are not eligible.

For approved schools, the standard limits of one team fee waiver per competition and two fee waivers per student do not apply.

How to Apply

A school counselor or principal should email waivers@algoed.co from their official school email address with the subject:

High-Poverty Public School Waiver Request – [School Name]

The email should include:

• School name, city, and state
• Competition(s) for which waiver access is requested
• A link to an official school, district, state, or federal source showing that 90% or more of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch
• Confirmation that the school is requesting school-wide fee waiver access

Participation in a universal free-meal program alone does not establish eligibility unless official data also shows that the school meets the 90% threshold.

AlgoEd may verify the information provided before approving school-wide waiver access.

Note: By “official school email address,” we mean an email with a school domain like @school.com  . We do not accept unverifiable personal email addresses from domains like @gmail.com  .