An Academic Investing Competition That Treats Discipline as the Prize
The S16 Preliminary Stage uses different scoring by division: Junior is 100% simulated trading; Senior is 10% simulated trading plus 90% investment strategy report. Senior team trading scores average the members’ individual scores.
The Student Investment Challenge (SIC) is a CEE-endorsed global investing competition for students in grades 6 through 12. We exist because high-school market thinking deserves to be evaluated with the same rigor as university coursework — and because a real Wall Street strategy starts long before a real Bloomberg terminal.
How a Classroom Argument Became a Fifteen-Season Competition
“We wanted a place where serious high-school market thinking could be evaluated like a research paper, not a fantasy league.” — SIC founding desk, S1 program notes
SIC began with a simple frustration. The student investing competitions of the early 2010s rewarded one thing — terminal portfolio return — and the result was always the same: the team that took the most concentrated, luckiest bet won the trophy, and learned almost nothing transferable.
The S16 Preliminary Stage uses different scoring by division: Junior is 100% simulated trading; Senior is 10% simulated trading plus 90% investment strategy report. Senior team trading scores average the members’ individual scores.
S16 registration runs from 11 September to 29 November 2026. Junior focuses on individual simulated trading, while Senior combines trading with a team investment strategy report and offers progression to later stages.
Three Institutions Behind the Program
SIC is independently academic, with a deliberately small but high-quality set of institutional anchors. None of our partners runs the competition; SKT does. CEE provides endorsement and curriculum framework; ACME provides academic governance; SKT provides operations and the program desk that students and schools interact with directly.
The Council for Economic Education is a leading United States non-profit dedicated to economic and financial literacy for students from kindergarten through grade twelve. SIC’s curriculum and judging frameworks are aligned with CEE’s national standards for economic education and personal finance.
CEE’s endorsement means SIC’s program design has been reviewed against established financial-education standards — not invented from scratch in a marketing department.
The S16 handbook identifies ACME as an academic recognition partner. Use the handbook and the Bloom task-card criteria for the rules that apply to each division.
This is what lets us say “academically supported” rather than “academically themed” — there is faculty oversight on what a defensible thesis looks like.
SKT operates SIC end to end — running the program desk that handles student inquiries, scheduling the four-stage season, organizing the Omaha Dialogue Summit, and managing the platform infrastructure on Bloom (绽放芯知). All conversations students and parents have with SIC happen with SKT staff, never with third-party brokers.
SKT also operates a small portfolio of other academic programs — SIC is the financial-literacy entry.
What We Want Every Participant to Take Away
SIC’s design is deliberately built around three outcomes — what a student should leave the season carrying, beyond a placement. These pillars guide our curriculum choices, mentor recruitment, judging emphasis, and the topics we choose for the Omaha Summit each year.
Global Financial Practice
Students work in real markets, with real instruments — equities, sectors, macro signals — using the same valuation frameworks taught at university business schools. The simulation environment is professionally calibrated, and the research expectations are deliberately closer to a sell-side initiation note than to a fantasy league pick.
The point is not to make 9th-graders into traders. It is to give them a structured introduction to professional method, so that what they later study formally at university is something they have already practiced.
University Admissions Edge
Competitive admissions readers see thousands of applications a year. What distinguishes one application from another is rarely a higher GPA — it is a specific, defensible piece of intellectual work the student has actually done. A SIC investment thesis or multi-month portfolio log gives admissions readers exactly that: something concrete to evaluate, in their own discipline.
Past SIC entrants have used their submissions in applications to leading business and economics programs worldwide.
ESG & Responsibility
Hanlin’s S16 operator briefing identifies AI+ESG Investing as the theme. Teams should apply relevant economic and financial knowledge and consult Bloom for the detailed report criteria.
The handbook lists knowledge application, analysis, critical thinking and report expression as report-evaluation dimensions; it does not assign equal 25% weights.
SIC vs. the Generic Investing Competition
SIC has two assessment routes. Choose the route that fits individual trading practice or collaborative financial research; the official S16 weights are shown below.
| Dimension | SIC | Typical Investing Competition |
|---|---|---|
| Primary judging criterion | The S16 Preliminary Stage uses different scoring by division: Junior is 100% simulated trading; Senior is 10% simulated trading plus 90% investment strategy report. Senior team trading scores average the members’ individual scores. | Terminal portfolio return. |
| Cohort selectivity | Grades 6–12; Junior individual, Senior teams of 2–4. Confirm school-specific and guardian requirements during registration. | Often open without consent gates; minimal advancement structure. |
| Mentor access | Mentors include practicing fund managers; office hours, weekly check-ins, and the annual Omaha Dialogue Summit are structured into the season. | Self-directed; mentor access typically informal or absent. |
| Academic governance | ACME provides faculty oversight of the rubric; CEE endorses program alignment with financial-education standards. | Often run without external academic governance. |
| Recognition basis | The S16 handbook separates study evaluation from optional third-party academic-honour conversion. See the handbook’s rank bands and application conditions. | Cash prizes, rank-based trophies, leaderboard tiers. |
| Intake channel | Advisor guidance on WhatsApp&WeChat; formal registration and payment through Webloom. | Web registration form; third-party reseller programs. |
| Track structure | Junior: individual simulated trading, 100%. Senior: 2–4 students, trading 10% and strategy report 90%. | Single track; often only team or only individual. |
Fifteen Seasons in Six Milestones
A condensed timeline of the program’s evolution from the pilot season to S15. Detailed season-by-season notes and past entries are archived in our Hall of Fame.
Founding cohort across four partner schools
Historical programme background. Current S16 scoring follows the handbook: Junior trading 100%; Senior trading 10% and report 90%.
The Omaha Summit becomes a fixed program event
The first mid-program dialogue summit was timed to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. It has run every season since, and has become the centerpiece mentor and alumni event of every SIC season.
ACME joins as academic support partner
Faculty governance of the judging rubric formalized, ensuring annual review of how Junior and Senior entries are evaluated.
Council for Economic Education endorsement
The program’s curriculum design and judging frameworks formally aligned with CEE national standards for economic and financial literacy.
ESG analysis becomes a scored input
The rubric was updated to make ESG factor analysis an explicit, scored input rather than an optional add-on, reflecting the standard now expected in professional investment research.
The current season
SIC S16 registration: 11 September–29 November 2026. Register and pay through Webloom, the official registration channel. Trading runs from 12 October to 11 December 2026 US Market Close. Senior reports are due on 11 December 2026 at 15:00 Beijing time. Complete registration and Senior team formation by 29 November at 23:59 Beijing time. Advisor guidance is available through WhatsApp &WeChat; confirm later-stage notices separately.
About the Program
What exactly is SIC’s relationship with CEE, ACME, and SKT?
CEE provides official endorsement: our curriculum and judging frameworks are aligned with their national standards for financial education. ACME provides academic governance: faculty review of the rubric. SKT operates the program: the desk you talk to, the calendar you run on, the Omaha Summit you attend. SKT is the only one of the three you interact with directly as a participant.
How does SIC compare to other student investing competitions?
The S16 Preliminary Stage uses different scoring by division: Junior is 100% simulated trading; Senior is 10% simulated trading plus 90% investment strategy report. Senior team trading scores average the members’ individual scores.
Is SIC affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway or the Buffett Foundation?
No. The Omaha Dialogue Summit is timed to the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting because the meeting is the world’s most concentrated gathering of long-horizon, conviction-first investors — and that’s the philosophy SIC was built around. There is no formal affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement from Berkshire Hathaway or any Buffett-related entity.
Can students participate without their school’s involvement?
The S16 handbook permits Senior teams across schools, grades and regions. It does not establish the grade-based consent rule formerly stated here; confirm any school or guardian paperwork in Webloom.
Does participating in SIC cost anything?
The S16 Preliminary Stage handbook lists standard fees of RMB 449 per Junior participant and RMB 649 per Senior participant. Eligible early-bird and returning-participant discounts have separate conditions; confirm the payable amount in Webloom.
What language is the competition conducted in?
Submissions can be made in English or simplified Chinese; the judging rubric is identical in both languages. Mentor office hours and the Omaha Summit are bilingual. Most international communications happen in English; school and parent paperwork is bilingual.
Registration closes 29 November 2026.
11 September–29 November 2026 · S16 registration
SIC guidance is available through WhatsApp & WeChat. Scan the code to discuss division selection and preparation, then complete registration through Webloom.
Complete official S16 registration and payment through Webloom. The QR code connects you to an advisor for guidance; a chat inquiry does not complete registration.
