School Membership FAQs

You can read through our detailed description of the new NoVA regional boundaries. If you’re still not sure, you can check our listing of Northern Virginia schools to determine which region you’re part of.

For more information about the number of teams that can compete from your school, please see our page called How Memberships Work.

1. Talk to your principal or school activities coordinator EARLY to see if they are willing to sponsor Odyssey of the Mind at your school.
2. Let the principal know that you would need to be able to send flyers home with students and possibly hold an informational meeting at the school to promote the program.
3. Find out if a faculty adviser is required and what rules the school might have in place concerning meeting times and spaces.
4. Once approval is given for the program and you have developed interest at the school, you can register the school for membership on the International Odyssey of the Mind web site under the school name. The initial school registration will allow the school to have one team per problem per division. If you are going to have more than one team competing in the same problem in the same division, you will need a second team membership, and we see this happening more frequently as interest in Odyssey grows at schools. For more information, see our page on How Memberships Work.

According to the Odyssey of the Mind Program Guide, the following rules apply in this situation:

In most circumstances, all team members come from the same school. However, multischool teams — those made up of students from different schools — are permitted as long as all the schools have a current membership. Multi-school teams may choose which school name they wish to use for registering their team, but they may only compete at one regional tournament, even though the multiple schools may be located in more than one region.

Furthermore, each team is allowed one student that attends a different school without a membership, but who resides in the same general area. However, the team members must agree and must have permission from principals from both schools involved. If a team member transfers to another school he/she may continue on the team until the end of the competition year, provided both school administrations approve.

For more information about the different types of memberships available, including those outside of the standard K-12 school system, please see our page called How Memberships Work.

It is possible to have more than one team from a school do the same problem. Each CCI membership permits the school to have one team per problem per division. If the teams doing the same problem are in different divisions (e.g., Division 1 and Division 2), only one school membership is required. If more than one team decides to solve the same problem AND they are in the same division, then the school must purchase an additional membership from CCI for each additional team in that same problem and division.