The first round of the Dutch Mathematical Olympiad will be held at all participating schools. On this page, you will find more information about the organisation at your school. There is also a page with general information about the Olympiad.
In brief
Organising the first round involves the following:
-
You register your school and register yourself as competition leader.
-
You recruit students for whom the Mathematical Olympiad is an enjoyable challenge.
-
You choose a time for the competition and arrange classrooms and invigilators.
-
One week before the start, you can download the competition materials.
-
You hold a two-hour (120-minute) competition session.
-
You mark the problems and enter the results on the competition website.
The process is described in more detail below. Please do not hesitate to
Timeline
October 2025
SLO sends information (letter, brochures and posters, all in Dutch) about the Dutch Mathematical Olympiad to all secondary schools offering havo/vwo education.
From 1 October, mathematics teachers can register as competition leaders for their school via the competition website. You do not need to register the students who will be participating in the first round when you register; it is easier to do this afterwards when you enter the results. More information about registration can be found on the page with general information. Choose one competition timeslot for your school in the period from 19 to 30 January 2026. Within this period, you are free to choose the exact date and start time. Organise a two-hour (120-minute) competition session on this date.
Thursday, 8 January 2026
Closing date for schools to register for the first round. If you still wish to register after this date, please contact our
Wednesday, 14 January 2026
The competition materials will be available on the competition website. Competition leaders from the registered schools can log in here with their email address and password. Here you can download the following competition documents: the problems, the answer form for the students and the marking scheme. The problems are also available in English. Make as many copies of the problems and the answer form as you think you will need and provide some scrap paper.
Monday, 19 January - Friday, 30 January 2026
The first round takes place at the registered schools. Within your school, all students take the competition on the same day and at the same time during a two-hour (120-minute) competition session. Students are not allowed to take their problem sheets and scrap paper with them after the session. You must collect the problem sheets and scrap paper. For more information about the procedure during the competition, see further down this page.
Afterwards, you will mark the problems (only the four open questions with a numerical answer) and enter the results on the competition website. See further down this page for the procedure.
Saturday, 31 January 2026
The problems and solutions will be published in the competition archive.
Monday, 2 February 2026
Deadline for entering the results, via the competition website.
Monday, 9 February 2026
The cut-off score (per category) for advancing to the second round will be announced on this website and sent by email to the competition leaders. On the competition website, you can see which students from your school have advanced to the second round and a certificate is available for them. In order to invite these students personally, we need the address details they provided on the answer form. We request that you provide us with this information via the competition website within three days so that the invitation letters for the second round can be sent out quickly.
Wednesday, 11 February 2026
Deadline for entering the address details of students who have advanced to the second round, via the competition website.
Subsequent rounds
The invitation letters for the students who have advanced to the second round will be sent on Monday, 16 February 2026. Until Thursday, 19 February 2026, students can submit a letter of motivation to be considered for a wild card for the second round.
The second round will take place on a Friday in March at 12 universities throughout the country. A total of approximately 800 students will be invited to the second round. The final round will then take place on a Friday in September at Eindhoven University of Technology. For the exact dates, see the timeline for the subsequent rounds (in Dutch). All those invited to the final will be offered four afternoons of training at a university in their region in May and June.
You do not need to organise anything for the subsequent rounds. The students will only need to be given time off school on the afternoon(s) in question.
Procedure during the competition session
The first round consists of a two-hour (120-minute) competition session. The following rules apply (see also the competition rules (in Dutch)):
-
Students may use scrap paper, pens, rulers, set squares and compasses, but not aids such as calculators, scissors, mobile phones, watches with calculators, etc.
-
Dyslexic students will not be given extra time.
-
At the start of the competition, each student fills in their details on the answer sheet, such as name, gender, address, email address and grade. Check that each form is completed in full; this will save extra work later on. These details may be used later for communication about subsequent rounds. We need to know the student's gender because there is a school prize for the best girls and because we are participating in an international competition specifically for girls (EGMO). If a student prefers not to indicate their gender, that is not a problem; the score will then of course not count towards the school prize for the best girls and the student will not be eligible for a place in the EGMO team.
-
After the session, students are not allowed to take their problem sheets and scrap paper with them. You must collect the problem sheets and scrap paper. The reason for this is that there is no fixed timeslot for the competition, but rather a two-week period. To prevent the problems from being distributed prematurely, the problem sheets and scrap paper must be collected. The exception to this is the last afternoon of the competition period. On this afternoon, the students are allowed to take the problem sheets and scrap paper with them.
Marking and entering scores
The first round consists of eight A-problems and four B-problems. The A-problems are multiple choice questions; the B-problems require an exact number (or numbers) as the answer. A maximum of 36 points can be earned with the questions: 2 for each A-problem and 5 for each B-problem.
Afterwards, you mark the problems and enter the results on the competition website.
-
After the competition, log in to the competition website with your email address. Enter the name, gender and grade of all students who took part. Because the cut-off point for advancing to the second round depends on the grade, it is very important that the grade of each student is entered correctly. Gender is important for the school prizes. You only need to enter address details if a student has advanced to the second round. If your school uses more than one BRIN code (e.g. for different departments), you must still enter all students from the same school under one and the same BRIN code of your choice. If students in the final year of high school participated (outside of the competition), do not enter them.
-
Next, enter your students' results. For A-problems, enter their answers, and for B-problems, enter their scores based on the marking scheme. This means you only need to mark the B-problems; the A-problems are scored automatically. Once you have entered and saved all the results, you can print out the teacher's sheet with statistics and an alphabetical list with scores. The results must be entered no later than the Monday after the end of the competition period.
-
Enter the results for all students, even if you think a student will not qualify for the second round. We also like to know the scores of low-scoring students. This allows us to see whether the competition was at the right level.
-
You can mark all the work before the end of the competition period, but do not tell your students their scores yet. Only at the end of the competition period can you announce the scores and give the problems and solutions to your students. The solutions will be available in the competition archive after the competition.
-
Keep the answer forms of all students until the cut-offs are known. You will then need the forms of the students who have advanced to the second round to complete the data in the system.
-
Comments on the problems are welcome and can be sent by
Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken. .