Caribou Help / FAQ
Please look for your question among the >200 questions in our FAQ before emailing us. Caribou aims to be 100% self-service. This helps keep our services affordable.
To use this Help Tree, choose the appropriate category and subcategories. If you are unable to find your question, use the Contact Us form located in the leaves of this tree. Thank you for your help.
Help Tree → For Caribou Coordinators (Teachers) → Contest Participation → General Questions about Participation
Questions & Answers:
Who can participate?
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Who can participate?
Answer:
Any school-aged child can participate in Caribou Contests. We offer 7 levels from the K/1 level up to grades 11/12. The competition is online so you can participate from anywhere in the world!
In some countries, it is better to sign up through one of our local partners. To see how you can register, see our Registration Guide.
Do you have to live in Canada to participate?
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Do you have to live in Canada to participate?
Answer:
No, you don’t have to live in Canada. It is an international online competition: currently (in 2021) we have over 50,000 students participating in over 38 countries!
In some countries, it is better to sign up through one of our local partners. To see how you can register, see our Registration Guide. Or to see if there is a local Caribou Representative in your home country, see About Caribou – Our Team.
Can schools in the Southern Hemisphere participate (eg. Australia)?
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Can schools in the Southern Hemisphere participate (eg. Australia)?
Answer:
You can definitely participate in Caribou Contests in the Southern Hemisphere. The main difficulty is that the school year is different from the Northern Hemisphere. Here are our recommendations:
- Students should participate in level they were in upon the first October contest of the Cup
- Contests which fall in the summer holiday may be written at home, under the same conditions (no outside help, no communicating, no calculators, and under adult supervision if possible)
- Students should be sent home with a letter for parents explaining how to access the Contests at home and the student’s access code, as well as instructions for how to contact their Caribou Coordinator if any issues occur. If you would like, Contact Us and we will send you a template that can be used.
Bruce starts grade 2 mid-February. Near the end of the school year, he participates in the grade 2 October contest, then the grade 2 December contest. His teacher sends him home with a letter with instructions and his access code so that he can write the grade 2 January contest at home. In February he starts grade 3 at school, but Bruce is still in the grade 2 level for this Caribou Cup, so he writes the February, April, and May contests at the grade 2 level. In October, he starts the grade 3/4 level in the new Caribou Cup.
Eventually, we would like to create a separate Caribou Cup for the Southern Hemisphere, although it is not feasible right now.
How does one participate in the contests?
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How does one participate in the contests?
Answer:
Please see the Caribou Cup Participation page for a full explanation.
Basically to participate in any Caribou contest you will need :
- A Contest Coordinator to run the contest (usually a teacher, librarian, homeschooling parent or tutoring centre director)
- A place to write the contest (usually a school, homeschool, library, tutoring centre)
- A device with internet access (computers are preferred but tablets and smartphones are also possible)
- A valid Access Code (usually obtained by the Caribou Coordinator / via a purchase in the Online Shop)
It is also possible to participate without a School by registering with the Caribou Virtual School. To do so, when making a purchase in the Online Shop, you must check the box for "No School" rather than selecting a school in the list. You will receive your Access Code and participation instructions along with your purchase confirmation email.
In any case, to participate in the contests each student must come to cariboutests.com on one of the Contest Days (typically a Wednesday or Thursday) within their school’s Contest Time Window. To start the contest, the student must click on the big red START THE CONTEST which appears in the upper-right corner on Contest Days, then sign in with their individual Access Code. The Access Code does not need to be assigned before contest day, it will become associated with the student’s name when they sign in to write their first contest.
How can I check if my school is already registered?
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How can I check if my school is already registered?
Answer:
To see if your school has already registered with Caribou Contests, check out the Participating Schools page.
If your school is not registered, a teacher, librarian, or administrator can register as a Caribou Coordinator for free here.
Is it too late / too early to register for the next contest?
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Is it too late / too early to register for the next contest?
Answer:
You can start registering for the current Caribou Cup’s contests on July 1. Afterwards, you can still sign up at any point during the year before the last contest is over (start of May). Yes, you can even sign up on a contest days. Please note, once you have a Caribou Cup valid Access Code, you are registered for all the remaining contests in that Caribou Cup.
It is easiest to register a student last-minute if the Coordinator registered at your school has School Wide Contest Access or it is for a free contest (October all levels or all contests in grades K/1 or grade 2) since the Coordinator merely has to generate new Access Codes for the new students.
If a student wants to participate separately from a school, they simply make a purchase of Contest Participation in our Online Shop.
See our Registration Guide for information tailored to your situation.
Can I start participating after the first contest?
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Can I start participating after the first contest?
Answer:
Yes, each contest is separate. For every contest there is a separate ranking, and you can download certificates for individual contests from your Student or Coordinator account. The first contest is in October, but you can definitely start to participate later in the year. The only difference to keep in mind is that while the October contest is free, the other 5 (November, January, February, April, May) are not.
Additionally, missing a contest could affect your ranking in the Caribou Cup, which takes into account your best 5 out of 6 contest scores.
I have students who dropped out after one or two contests. Is there a way to remove them from my list?
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I have students who dropped out after one or two contests. Is there a way to remove them from my list?
Answer:
While we do not delete contest records, there are a couple things that can be done:- In Manage & Print Access Codes, you could assign a different "class" to students who are no longer participating, like "Z", then click on the column header "Class" to organize the table according to that header such that they are sent to the end of the table and are less visible.
- If absolutely necessary we can move them to the Caribou Virtual School so they are not part of your school anymore. This could be time-consuming if there are many students. In this case, Contact Us
When is the next contest?
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When is the next contest?
Answer:
The countdown at the top of our website header counts down until the next contest. To see all contest dates for the current Caribou Cup, you can click on the Upcoming icon on our homepage, or on Contests > Upcoming in the main menu. For general information about the contests, dates, registration, and so on, please visit the Caribou Cup Participation page.
To receive updates about upcoming contests, please consider the following options :
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Twitter
- Join our Email Subscriber List (renewed every year) if you are a Parent/Student or by enabling “Allow Caribou to Contact Me” in your account settings if you are a Coordinator
- Check the Caribou News on the Homepage
How can I remove a student who no longer attends my school?
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How can I remove a student who no longer attends my school?
Answer:
If the student’s new school also runs Caribou Contests, then the student’s new Caribou Coordinator can sign in and use “Move a Student to My Account” to move the student’s account over. Otherwise, it is okay to just ignore the student’s account. If the student paid for their own contest participation, and they no longer wish to have their old school on their certificate, then they can Contact Us to ask us to move their account to the Caribou Virtual School.
Our school will be on holiday/break on the day of the contest. Can students write the contest from home?
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Our school will be on holiday/break on the day of the contest. Can students write the contest from home?
Answer:
If students will not be able to write the contest at school on the Wednesday or the Thursday, they may be allowed to write the contest at home. They must promise not to use calculators, not to get outside help, and not to communicate the questions to other students. You can warn students that we have automatic correlation tests in place to detect possible unfair participation.
Please inform students and parents that even though students are writing from home, they can still only access the contest during the school’s Contest Time Window. If necessary, their Coordinator can shift the school’s time window (See the item Can our students write the contest before 7:30am or after 3:30pm?).
Because students will be writing from home the Coordinator will receive an alert about the IP address not matching that of the school. Since the Coordinator knows that the student will be writing at home, they can ignore this alert.
We missed the contest. Can we still write it?
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We missed the contest. Can we still write it?
Answer:
No, sorry, it is impossible to participate in a missed contest. The last time to start the contest is Thursday 18:30 EST as we release results and answers shortly thereafter.
However, this does not necessarily have an impact on your students’ Caribou Cup ranking (see the item How does a missed contest affect cup rankings?). Also, the students can still write the contest as practice; it will appear under Prepare > Previous Tests > Try a Past Contest, and purchase of these past contests can be purchased through our Online Shop.
We have made tools available to Coordinators to avoid such situations. For example, they can shift the time contest window to allow students to write elsewhere when writing at school is impossible. See the item Can our students write the contest before 7:30am or after 3:30pm?
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