IOI or JEE preparations?

I am currently promoted to class 12, I am not strong in science subjects, however i have good knowledge about data structures. Now, I am confused should i prepare for IOI or JEE or Try for both.

By clearing JEE i can get some good college, but i am not sure i will be able to crack it.
On the other hand I think in a year time i can try to get selected for INOI, and If i get selected i get can get admitted in IIIT-H as given on [site][1].

Can anyone share their previous experience, Or show me right directions should i take.
[1]: Indian Computing Olympiad - Current - IARCS

I was EXACTLY in your situation last year. I did participate in INOI and I solved only one problem fully. My parents were advising me to go for JEE because INOI is very risky at this stage but I went for INOI anyway and fortunately I could go to the next stage this year by solving all problems in the last 3 minutes(Was getting TLE in one case for unknown reasons, almost made me cry :stuck_out_tongue: ).

I think what matters most is if you really like algorithms and data structures and are willing to work hard for it also what interests you more. Disclaimer would be, it’s very risky and you have to think about it and take the right decision. Learned helplessness doesn’t help.

How would you like your future to be, would you like to be an engineer or a researcher, do you think you will practice hard the whole year without losing motivation, and so on. Ask these to yourself and get after you answer all of these you will know what to do.

Obviously, I am no life advisor. So, take my words with a grain of salt. :slight_smile:

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Perhaps I can ping someone who can help.

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can you share how did you prepare, not about practice, but from where any institution or classes from where you learn algorithms. and how was your performance in 12, and most important what was your schedule, how you managed time for all?

More than practicing I think important is to do as many contests as possible and upsolve each problem after the contest.

I didn’t study a lot of stuff for school. Even my attendance in school was low so I had to give 100% attendance towards the end of the session. My marks were poor, I did get to hear stuff from parents teachers and all but in the end what matters is I proved them wrong. :slight_smile: I think you should also care less about what others say and plan a good schedule for yourself. I mostly did only codeforces and codechef contests alongwith usaco…

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and in the last months I did all the INOI and ZCO problems here on codechef. So yeah, if you are going for IOITC then you CAN ignore other subjects completely given that you are confident. I studied and finished all of the class 12 syllabus after the pre boards and even in pre boards I barely just passed.

About learning algorithms. Its mostly youtube channels like algorithms live, gkcs and rachit jains, and then topcoder tutorial and random codeforces blogs. Even I recently started my own channel: Ista - YouTube

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So yeah, I guess that sums it up pretty well. Do comment more if you have any questions left. :slight_smile:

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thnx a lot dear, you have really helped me lot, i was really confused. Thnx a lot again. :smiley:

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Hi, I have some queries, i had posted a question regarding it, can u answer it out: Query Regarding ZIO - general - CodeChef Discuss

Update for new students: here is my inoi last years papers analysis, do check it out.
INOI Paper Analysis

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