Quant Rush opens October 13 and submissions close November 22, 2026.

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qfec.smc@gmail.com · @qfecsmc · Tuesdays 11:15–12:15 · MSB 207

Rules · eligibility · FAQ

The Miner's Code

Everything you need to know before you dig. Lines marked “to be finalized” are decided before Kickoff.

H. Sandham, “The Sluice,” The Century, 1883 · Public domain

§1Eligibility

Quant Rush is open to every student currently enrolled at Santa Monica College, in any major, at any level of experience.

  • Register with your SMC student email. We verify eligibility against the registration list before prizes are awarded, by matching Kaggle usernames to registered emails.
  • Anyone can play on Kaggle, but only registered SMC students are eligible for awards and prizes.
  • Board members who help design the problem or prepare the data cannot compete.

§2Teams

Compete solo or in a team. Teams are formed on Kaggle; you can merge with another team until the merge deadline shown on the competition page.

  • Maximum team size: N To be finalized
  • One Kaggle account per person. Multiple accounts lead to disqualification, on Kaggle and here.
  • Need teammates? Say so on the registration form and we match people up at Kickoff.
  • Private sharing of code or predictions between teams is not allowed. Sharing publicly with everyone, in a Kaggle discussion or notebook, is fine and encouraged.

§3Data & evaluation

The dataset is historical financial data that has been transformed so that it cannot be matched back to its source. Column names are anonymized and dates are replaced with a sequence index. Trying to reverse this is against the rules (see the Code below) and, more to the point, will not help you.

Public and private leaderboards

Your submissions are scored on two parts of the test set. The public leaderboard updates after every submission and shows how you are doing on one part. The private leaderboard is computed on the other part and stays hidden until the deadline. Final rankings use the private leaderboard only. A model that chases the public score tends to fall on the private one; that is the whole lesson of Workshop 4.

Still to be announced

  • Evaluation metric To be finalized
  • Daily submission limit To be finalized
  • How many final submissions each team selects for the private leaderboard To be finalized
  • External data policy To be finalized
On the recordThe competition page on Kaggle is the authority on metric, limits, and deadlines. If this page and Kaggle ever disagree, Kaggle wins.

§4Awards

One leaderboard, several ways to win. Award names are placeholders until the board settles them; prizes are real and are announced at Kickoff.

  • Mother Lode — Overall · Private leaderboard. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place on the private leaderboard.
  • Greenhorn's Luck — Best beginner. Top finisher among self-declared first-timers.
  • Assayer's Choice — Best write-up. The clearest explanation of a method, judged by the board.
  • Fool's Gold — Public → private drop. Biggest fall from the public to the private leaderboard. A joke award with written rules.

How the joke award is decided

Among the teams finishing in the top N of the public leaderboard, Fool's Gold goes to the team with the largest drop in rank on the private leaderboard. N is announced with the metric To be finalized. It comes with a prize and, if you want it, thirty seconds at the wrap-up to explain what happened.

§5The Miner's Code

Rules of the camp
  1. Dig your own claim.

    One account per person. Your team's work is your team's work.

  2. Don't salt the mine.

    No attempts to de-anonymize the data, recover the original source, or look up the answers.

  3. Share at the campfire, not in the dark.

    Public sharing on Kaggle is welcome. Private sharing between teams is not.

  4. Be good to the other prospectors.

    Help beginners. Be kind in discussions. Organizers can remove anyone who isn't.

  5. Ask for a lantern.

    Stuck? Come Tuesdays, or email qfec.smc@gmail.com. Nobody mines alone.

§6FAQ

Do I need experience?
No. The first two workshops take you from zero to a submitted baseline. Experienced folks can skip ahead; beginners have their own award.
Is it free?
Yes. Registration, Kaggle, and the workshops are all free.
Can I team up?
Yes, in teams of up to N. Solo is fine too. Need teammates? Say so on the form and we'll match you at Kickoff.To be finalized
Do I need to be a finance major?
No. If you can run a Python notebook, or want to learn, you're in.
What is Kaggle?
A free platform for data-science competitions. You upload predictions, it scores them and ranks everyone on a leaderboard. We walk you through it at Kickoff.
What do I win?
Prizes for the top of the private leaderboard, the best beginner, the best write-up, and one joke award. The actual prizes are announced at Kickoff.
What if I can't make it on Tuesdays?
The competition itself is fully online. Workshop materials are posted on the Workshops page after each session, and you can email us questions any time.
Do I need a powerful computer?
No. Kaggle Notebooks run in the cloud for free, so any laptop that opens a browser is enough.
Can I use AI tools like ChatGPT?
The policy is being finalized and will be announced at Kickoff. Whatever the answer, your write-up must explain what your model does in your own words.To be finalized
When are the results announced?
The private leaderboard appears on Kaggle right after the deadline on Sunday, Nov 22. Awards and prizes are handed out at the wrap-up on Tuesday, Dec 1.

Something missing? Email us or ask on Tuesday. Back to registration →