Preliminary round results and prizes at Science Olympiad Day

Preliminary round results

This is the second year since the Philosophy Olympiad introduced its new preliminary round, which again, was very well received: 1169 students out of 83 different schools participated.

We congratulate the top two participants Jonas Isengard (Kantonsschule am Burggraben), who scored 92.5 out of 94 points, and Amélie Stückelberg (Collège Voltaire), who scored 91 out of 94 points.

In total 1117 participants fulfill the participation criteria and out of these 162 are invited to take part in the first essay round, where they can showcase their philosophical skills by writing an essay to one of four topics. 

Out of the invited, 121 are from German-speaking areas, 41 from Romandie, 6 attend international schools, 2 are from Sek 1 schools and 4 from two schools in Liechtenstein.

We are delighted to welcome participants from last year’s (semi-)finals, who have once again qualified for the first essay round: Andrej Ševera (Collège Voltaire), Austin Zhang (École Moser Genève), Dominique Gürtler (Gymnasium am Münsterplatz), Gavriel Harvey (Kantonsschule Uetikon am See), Hongjia Meng (Kantonale Mittelschule Uri), Jovian Soejono (International School of Geneva) Oscar Pasche (Lycée-Collège de Saint-Maurice), Svenja Felber (Kantonsschule Trogen) and Yihang Xiong (Kantonsschule am Burggraben).

If you are a student and not sure whether you qualified for the first essay round, you can check your results on OlyPortal!

We sincerely thank all 79 teachers involved, some of which participated with over 30 students from several classes. To name a few: Dominique Kuenzle, Matteo Albrecht, Mathieu Roduit, Maurice Vincent, Norbert Anwander, Désirée Monbaron, Laura Cavallaro, Sven Durrer, Simon Siegrist, Barbara Schmitz and Anja Uhlmann. An especially big thanks goes to Boris Stanisic for bringing no less than 160 students to the preliminary round. 

This is the second time we have had a preliminary round before the first essay round. We know that there are students who have difficulties with such online tests but would write really good essays. Therefore, we have added the option for teachers to recommend students for the first round. This then supplements the online test. This new option was used on 21 students.

OlyDay and prize for Filipa Lüthy

Last weekend OlyDay 2025, the end-of-year party of the Science Olympiads, was held in Bern. We looked back together on the Olympiad year 24/25 and honored special achievements of the participants with prizes.

Filipa Lüthy won the prize for third best relative rank at an International Olympiad. In spring she represented Switzerland together with Hannah Furer at the International Philosophy Olympiad in Bari, Italy. She ranked at least 6^th with her essay, since she won one of four silver medals. Andrej Ševera also got a prize for second best interdisciplinary performance at national level for his success at several finals, including a bronze medal in the Philosophy Olympiad. Congratulations to both!

OlyDay was also an opportunity for participants and volunteers from all 11 Olympiads to get to know each other and connect. Volunteers of the Philosophy Olympiad hosted a stand at the marketplace, where they introduced the Philosophy Olympiad to all interested: We played games and discussed different thought experiments. The discussions with participants and volunteers from other Olympiads were particularly interesting, as everyone brought unique perspectives from their respective Olympiad. For example, we debated with one mathematician whether it would be possible, or even a good idea, to reduce all of philosophy to logic, and eventually mathematics.