FAQs for Teachers / Organizers

Overview

What grade levels can participate in the COMC?

Anyone who has not completed high school can take the COMC. In the North American education system, this means kindergarten to grade 12. In Quebec, this also includes CEGEP.

What do students get out of it?

Participation in nationally recognized math competitions is a fantastic addition to their portfolio, particularly if they want to secure a university entrance scholarship.
They gain new experience in problem solving that allows them to compete with some of the most mathematically inclined students in Canada.
We issue official certificates to all competitors and reward the top scorers publicly on our website, in addition to awarding them small monetary prizes.
The top competitors stand a chance of being invited to the CMO (Canadian Mathematical Olympiad).

Where is the competition held?

Teachers/organizers hold the competition in their own schools.

When is the competition held?

Date: Please refer to the competition homepage.
Time: If writing the contest on Wednesday, we ask all those in the Central Time Zone (North America) to write in the morning, and those to the east of this zone to write in the afternoon. If writing on Thursday, the supervisor/teacher can determine the time of day to write.

What is the duration of the competition?

The competition lasts 150 minutes and consists of 12 questions.

Is the competition on paper or online?

On paper.
A few days before the competition, we'll upload PDFs directly to your portal account (or send you printed documents by mail, depending on your choice) containing the question booklets and individual (named) Student Answer Sheets. For PDF delivery, you'll print out these documents and the students will do their work on paper, just like for a traditional exam.

What is the exam structure and grading system?

The set of questions is the same for all students at all grade levels. There are :

Four introductory questions, worth 4 points each;
Four intermediate questions, worth 6 points each; and
Four advanced questions, worth 10 points each.
Maximum score: 80 points.

The first two sections (introductory and intermediate) are graded as follows:

If the student answers correctly, they receive full marks without having to show their work.
If the student doesn't give the right answer, but at least presents a correct work, a partial mark can be awarded.
Students are not obliged to show their work, but if they fail to do so and make a small error in their answer, they will not be awarded any points.

Advanced questions require fully developed solutions (students must show all their work).

Who registers? Teachers or students?

Teachers (or organizers).
Minimal student information is required, but students enter the competition via their teacher, who therefore provides a list of competitors.
It is important to fill in the Student Roster on the portal before the deadline, as the exams will be designed to contain student information.

Do teachers have to grade the exam?

No.
Teachers collect the students' exam booklets and mail them to one of our partner universities for correction. For all Canadian schools, we provide a prepaid courier service scheduled for Friday.
For international schools, you must send the exams at your own expense to the partner university indicated in the Proctor's Instructions.
We will send you an email when the exams have been marked and the results are available.

Is the exam available in English only?

No, it's also available in French.
When you place an order, you will be given a “Student Roster” in which you can enter the names of the students and their exam language.

How much does it cost?

See prices on the contest home page, under “Rates and Delivery Methods”.

Schools and Other Organizations

Our school is not in Canada - can we still participate?

Yes. We have an International Division (see our “Prizes and Awards” page) in which your students can participate.
In general, we ask schools in time zones outside North and South America to take the competition the day after schools in Canada take it.
In some countries, we also have International Partner organizations that help coordinate students taking the competition in those countries. We invite you to click on the links to these organizations on the International Competition Partners page for contact details and further information.

Can homeschools, enrichment, tutoring or coaching organizations participate?

Yes. The COMC is a competition open to all students who are interested in and well versed in mathematics.
However, in order for students to compete as official competitors, there are eligibility requirements. In particular, the competition and proctoring must be carried out by a Qualified Proctor who holds a provincially recognized teaching certificate and is not a family relative of any of the students. Generally, an organization such as those mentioned above (homeschools, enrichment, tutoring or coaching organizations) would either administer the exam unofficially or contact a qualified teacher who would agree to receive and/or print the material, administer the exams to the students and return their work to us for official processing and marking. All proctors appointed in this way must be approved by the CMS in order to guarantee the integrity of the competition. The organizer, of course, retains sole access to all orders and results.
For further information, please visit our Eligibility

Registering (Ordering)

When is the registration deadline?

If you would like us to pre-print the material for you and send it by mail, the deadline is October 16.
If you would like to download the material in PDF format and print it yourself for your students, the deadline is October 23.

What is the minimum order quantity?

Please refer to the information on the competition home page, under “Rates and Delivery Methods”.

What are the steps for registering my students?

Once registration is open, you'll see a registration button on the competition home page. This will take you to the Competitions Portal.

Create a new account (if you don't already have one on our new portal). Choose “Create Account” and enter your email address. You will receive a verification email within a few minutes. Click on the link in the email, then enter your name and set your password. Next, log in and choose “School/Organization” as your account type (rather than “Student”). Finally, enter your school's name and address.
Register for the COMC. It will appear as one of the competition choices open for registration. Select the number of exams you wish to order and confirm. This creates an unpaid order in our system.
If you can pay online using a credit card or Paypal account, we encourage you to do so. Some schools require paper invoices and paper checks to be sent to us by mail. This is also acceptable, provided you can meet the payment deadline. You can print the invoice for any unpaid order.
Once payment has been made, a receipt is available on your portal.
Identify your students. Use the Student Enrolment function in your portal to do this. All competition papers are prepared with pre-printed student information. The information we need is quite minimal. This is an important new feature, please ensure that this is done before the registration deadline.

The portal indicates that my organization is an unofficial participant. What does this mean, and what can I do about it?

Please visit the Eligibility
If you just created your account on the portal, we need a day or two to verify your information. Once we have completed this assessment, we will send you an email notifying you of the result.
Even if, after the assessment, your organization is still considered unofficial, you may make special arrangements with a qualified proctor so that your students can participate as official competitors.
Please note that this does not prevent you from ordering exams and does not affect prices.

I need to add exams to those I have already ordered. What should I do?

Simply place an additional order. In this case, there is no minimum order.

Our school has paid for the exams, but some of the students who were supposed to participate are unable to do so. Can we reduce the order and get a refund?

Up until registration deadline: Yes, with restrictions. You must send us an email to do this. You cannot reduce the total number of exams ordered below the minimum order size. We also charge a 10% administration fee. The remaining amount will be refunded. We may cancel your original order and create a new (paid) order in its place with the revised quantity.
After the registration deadline: No. However, if you find someone else who wants to take the exam instead of the original student, you can do so. Simply change the information in your Student Roster and, if necessary, cross out the student's old information on the exam booklet and enter the replacement student's information. Please also send us an email to notify us of this change.

What is the Inclusion Initiative?

Please visit our Inclusion Initiative In short, it's a small number of free registrations that we're offering to increase the participation rate of traditionally under-represented groups.
This initiative applies only to schools in Canada that we have deemed official.
Schools whose students qualify for the inclusion initiative must send us an email before placing their order:
- Tell us the number of students who would benefit from the initiative and the total number of exams you intend to order.
- We will then email you special instructions on how to place your order, so that the amount you pay is reduced accordingly.
- Please note that there is a maximum of 5 free exams per school.
The CMS does not ask for the identity of students involved in this initiative.

Student Roster

What is the Student Roster?

The Student Roster is used to identify your students prior to the competition. This is a new requirement since 2023.
Exam booklets are now pre-printed with information on each student. Each booklet must be given to the designated student. This allows us to speed up the marking and processing of exams.
The information we need for each student is quite minimal:
- First and Last name
- Grade (based on the North American K-12 system, and Cégep for Quebec)
- Full-time student (yes/no)
- School name (by default, this is the name of your own school, which will appear on the certificate - this information may be modified in the event that a guest student from another school joins your group solely for the competition).
- Gender identity (optional)

Why do you ask for gender identity?

This is optional. Teachers are free to select “Prefer not to say”.
There are two reasons for this. First, we participate in some invitational competitions, such as the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO), which restricts participation to female students. When considering who to invite to form a Canadian team, we have to take this restriction into account. Secondly, we want to encourage greater participation by girls in our competitions, and we want to know how we are doing.

What information about students becomes public?

If a student achieves excellent results and wins one of the Gold/Silver/Bronze awards or an Honourable Mention in one of our divisions (see Prizes and Awards page), we only identify the student by their name and school on our website.
Unless a student obtains a perfect score, we do not publicly mention their result. Of course, teachers have access to all their students' results.

Payments

Payment methods

Online payment is preferred. We use Paypal to manage our online payments. If you have a Paypal account, you can use it, but you may also simply use your credit card to pay for the exams.
Paper cheques are still accepted. Some schools still require the use of traditional invoices and send us cheques by post. This option is also acceptable, but it is the school's responsibility to ensure that we receive payment on time.

What is the payment deadline?

The same as the applicable registration deadline.

CMS reserves the right to cancel any order that remains unpaid after the payment deadline. If you anticipate a delay in payment, please contact us.

How can I get an invoice?

Log in to your portal and choose the contest involved.
You will see a link for each of your orders (if you have more than one). By selecting an unpaid order, you will see the invoice.

How do I know that my cheque payment has been received?

Once payment has been received, we will update your order history and status on the portal. We will also send you an email to let you know.

How can I get a receipt?

Log in to your portal and choose the contest involved.
You will see a link for each of your orders (if you have more than one). By selecting a paid order, you will see the receipt.

Refund/Cancellation

Paid orders cannot be modified.
If your order is not marked as paid, you can cancel it yourself using your portal.

Can I pay online even if I've previously indicated that a cheque would be mailed?

Yes.
Simply log in to your account on the portal, search for the order and click on “Pay Now”. Please also email us to let us know you've done this.

Materials and Proctoring

When and how do we receive the material?

If you have ordered printed and shipped exams, we will pre-print and mail them to you. You should receive them on the Tuesday before the competition.
If you have ordered PDF exams, we will put them on your portal so that you can download them on Wednesday. You'll find the “Download” link on your portal.
In special cases where the organization uses a specially appointed proctor, we send the PDF documents to the proctor by email rather than uploading them to the portal.

If you don't have what you expected at the beginning of the day on Tuesday (or Wednesday for PDF orders), please email us or call us (613-733-2662) for assistance.

How do I send the exams back for marking?

Immediately after the competition, make sure you have all your students' booklets - and count them to confirm.
Insert them in a courier envelope (or another sturdy envelope) and enclose the courier's pre-paid waybill. Do not include unused or blank exam copies. The address of one of our partner universities is written on the waybill.
Give the envelope to your school's main office by Friday morning. The courier will collect the envelope on Friday.
Please ensure that the Proctor Declaration is included in the envelope with the exams.

Note: If you are not a resident of Canada, you will need to mail the documents back to us at your own expense. The address to use is indicated in your Proctor Instructions.

If you encounter technical or logistical problems, please email us.

What are the rules for students regarding calculators, dictionaries, etc.?

Calculators, cell phones and other electronic devices are not permitted.
Dictionaries, if necessary, may be used if the proctor/teacher supervises their use.
Non-electronic tools such as compasses and protractors are permitted.

What happens if, on the day of the competition, a pre-identified student isn't there, but another (unregistered) student wants to participate in the competition?

Please allow this if you can.

Find the (otherwise unused) booklet of the missing student. Cross out the student's information on the front page. Write the name and grade of the replacement student on the front cover and let them use this booklet for the competition.
Please email us to let us know who is replacing which student, so that we can adjust our records.

What if an additional student wants to participate on the day of the competition?

If you have ordered additional exams but have not included names in your Student Roster, you can use these exams. These should have blank spaces where the name and grade level would normally appear.
Do not photocopy the booklets - each one is coded for a particular student for automated processing, and you risk both students' exams (the original and the photocopy) being disqualified.
If you did not order additional exams, you are limited to the ones you have.

Results

How and when will I receive my students' results?

All exams are marked by hand by teams of trained university markers. The process therefore takes a few weeks.
We aim to make unofficial results available for all students before the school break in December. We will send you an email when these results are available on your portal.
Final grades, award winner lists, certificates, etc. should be available by mid-January. We'll email you again when this is ready.
At that point, overall results (for Canada and International divisions, as well as breakdowns by grade level and province/region) will be available on the COMC main page. There are no public results comparing individual schools.

Does everyone receive a certificate?

All students who participate as official participants receive certificates of one kind or another.
We create award certificates for those with high scores and quartile-based certificates for those without specific awards.
All certificates can be accessed via the competitions portal.

Please see our Prizes and Awards page for more details.

How and when are monetary and random prizes distributed?

Random draw: Everyone who participates in the COMC in Canada is eligible for a CMS participation prize, which is drawn at random.
For top competitors in Canada:
- Cash prizes: We have a pool of cash prizes that we divide among the top students and send them a cheque.
- Portfolios: Top students can also receive a printed copy of their award certificate in a portfolio.
- Plaques: We can also produce plaques for schools with top students, to be displayed on a wall or in a trophy case.
For all physical material, we send a parcel to the attention of the teacher or organizer to pass on to their students, as appropriate.
We aim to send these parcels by mail in January/February.

Account System

So this is a new portal system? What about the old accounts?

Yes, the new system has been operational since September 2023.
All schools/organizations must create a new account on the new system. The new system uses the email address you provide to log in, rather than the school ID.
Prior to 2023, we had a different system. It is still online, so schools wishing to access their historical information can still do so.

Does every student need an account?

No. Only teachers (or organizers) have an account on the portal. They manage their students using their teacher account.

I am sure that my school has an account and a password, but we have forgotten it.

First, please note that we have a new portal system (2023) and it requires new accounts for all schools.
The new portal system uses unique email addresses of organizers/teachers.
There is a link for forgotten password on the login page, which will send you a verification code by email so you can reset your password. You should receive this within a few minutes. Check your inbox and spam/junk mailbox and click on the link in the email.
If you still can’t access your account, you can contact our office, but we will need to take additional steps to ensure your identity, and this may take a few days.

How can I update my school’s address?

Please email the CMS office to change your school address. In your email, please include: your current school address, your new school address, your email address and your school ID.
To minimize the risk of cheating, we must manually inspect and verify these changes.

Can I change the email address of my school account?

No. Once an email address has been used to create an account, it cannot be altered. If a different organizer wishes to take over administering competitions at your school, please have them create a new account. Please email us for further assistance.

I am a teacher and have changed schools, but my email address has not changed. How can I delete my old school information from my account and set up my account with my new school?

Send us an email detailing the situation.
If a teacher at your old school can “take over” the school’s information (and possibly coordinate the competition there now that you’ve left), please include their name and email as well.
Be sure to include a full mailing address for your new school as well. We may take extra steps to properly authorize all changes.

Our school participated in another CMS competition earlier this year. Do we need a separate account for each competition?

No. You only need one.
Your portal will contain all your history organized by contest and year.

Where can I find our school’s results for previous years?

The new portal system does not contain data from previous years, but the old system still works. You can access the old portal here.
Teachers log in to the old portal using their old school ID and passwords.
It is not possible to register for competitions using the old system.

Did we answer your question?

If not please use this contact form to route your question to the right person.

It can take up to 2-3 business days for us to reply. In the past, many people sent us emails for questions that were already answered in the FAQs above, so your fastest route to an answer is to look for the information above first.