Valencia High Chemistry Olympiad team earns first place in Orange County

Congratulations to Valencia High School’s Chemistry Olympiad team for finishing in first place out of a total of 31 Orange County schools! For the Tigers, this marks the fifth, first place finish in the past eleven years.

Team members include Woo Hyun Song, Donovan Nguyen, Elliot Yoon, and Hyun Jin Im.

The top 8 Orange County schools:
#1 – Valencia
#2 – Sage Hill
#3 – Tesoro
#4 – Troy
#5 – Woodbridge
#6 – University
#7 – Los Alamitos
#8 – Saint Margaret’s Episcopal

Additionally, Woo Hyun Song and Donovan Nguyen were among the top 12 individual students in the county that are advancing to the national level of the competition. They will join approximately 900 students from across the nation that qualified for the National Chemistry Olympiad. It will be held on April 17 & 24. The top twenty students from that competition will be invited to two weeks of intense instruction and competition in early June. The top four there will represent the U.S. in the International Chemistry Olympiad to be held in Osaka, Japan in July (virtually if necessary). Over 85 countries competed (virtually) last year in Istanbul, Turkey and the U.S. team finished first in the world! Congrats to the entire team and good luck to Woo Hyun Song and Donovan Nguyen. Way to go, Tigers!