About ANCO
In the modern day, olympiads are hard. And they will only get harder as time passes. And USACO is no exception to this pattern of contests getting harder.
In the 2025-2026 contest season, there have been many complaints about “USACO getting harder” on many different platforms, from Discord to Reddit to even Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform.
In the 2026 Bronze First Contest, over 61% of contestants got below a score of 242/1000. The harsh reality is, USACO Bronze problems aren't solvable for beginners anymore.
As a result, beginners are forced to suffer…without the right foundation.
USACO promises that Bronze is a division for people who “just learned how to code…” but its problems don't demonstrate that.
And that's what ANCO is here for. By creating a contest that is not only truly built for people who actually “just learned how to code,” but also helps contestants build a strong foundation for USACO Bronze by including basic USACO Bronze concepts, like Big O time complexity, sorting, complete search, and ad hoc.
Hi, I'm Stephan! I am the founder and main problemwriter of ANCO, and I founded ANCO to provide a solution to the exponentially increasing difficulty of USACO. I am a person who has experienced the rapid difficulty jump myself. I trained for USACO tirelessly for 3+ months, dedicating 45+ minutes every day to USACO only to get a 242/1000 on the extremely difficult 2026 USACO Bronze First Contest. After my parents read on their social media sites that everyone was complaining about how difficult the First Contest was, I knew I had to fix this rather unjust structure. Coupling with my passion for problemwriting, I decided to create ANCO to help beginners get the right foundation to prepare them for USACO in “this” day and age. Just know, beginners, that I'm there for you! :)
Stephan Zhao
USACO Silver — scored 818/1000 on the 2026 USACO Bronze Third Contest