Hey, guys. I'm super into coding and cybersecurity, and I was wondering if there are any popular cybersecurity competitions for high school students? I think it'd be interesting to take part in, and it might even look good on college apps. Any suggestions?
Absolutely, cybersecurity competitions can be an excellent way to advance your skills and demonstrate your interest in coding. Plus, they can certainly make for an impressive addition to your college applications, especially if you wish to pursue a related field of study. Here are a few highly regarded cybersecurity competitions for high school students:
1. CyberPatriot: Sponsored by the Northrop Grumman Foundation and run by the Air Force Association, CyberPatriot is one of the largest and most recognized high school cybersecurity competitions. This competition focuses on practical cybersecurity skills and pits teams against each other to handle simulated real-world cybersecurity situations.
2. picoCTF: Hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, picoCTF is a free, online cybersecurity competition intended for middle school and high school students. The challenges in picoCTF are designed to be approachable and educational. They range from penetration testing to reverse engineering, and solving them requires a mix of critical thinking, problem-solving, and coding skills.
3. National Youth Cyber Defense Competition: This program aims to excite, educate, and motivate students towards careers in cybersecurity and other STEM disciplines. The teams play the role of newly hired IT professionals, tasked with managing the network of a small company. In rounds of competition, the teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems and are tasked with finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities and hardening the system while maintaining critical services.
Remember that winning or ranking highly in these competitions falls under a Tier 1 or Tier 2 extracurricular, making it quite an impressive element in your college application. Good luck!
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