AlexandruINV's blog

By AlexandruINV, 7 months ago, In English

Hello everyone,

For the past few years I’ve spent quite a lot of time helping students with programming for university admissions and competitive programming. Most of the time it wasn’t anything formal. Usually it was just sitting down together, looking at problems, discussing ideas, and trying to understand why a certain approach works or why another one fails.

Those kinds of discussions are honestly one of the things I enjoy the most about competitive programming.

Because of that, I thought it would be nice to create a place where people who enjoy algorithms and contests can simply talk and exchange ideas more easily. So I started a small Discord Server.

The idea is simple. A relaxed place where people can discuss problems, share ideas, and talk about contests. For example:

  • discussing algorithms and different approaches to problems
  • talking about interesting problems we encounter
  • discussing Codeforces rounds after they end
  • helping each other understand solutions or concepts
  • also I think we can set up some bots for coding battles, not sure but I will look into it =)

If time allows, I would also like to occasionally organize small sessions where we go through interesting problems together and present different approaches or techniques.

I also recently made a blog post with analysis on Codeforces ratings and some statistics around them. I enjoy these kinds of small projects, and it could be interesting to work on similar ideas together. Things like analyzing contest data, exploring patterns, or building small tools related to competitive programming.

I know there are already quite a few communities like this, and many of them are great. At the same time, some of them can become very large and crowded, and sometimes it’s harder to actually have longer discussions there. My hope is to keep this as a comfortable place where people can talk more naturally.

At the moment, we are already over 1000 people in the group, but I hope we can grow even more into a friendly and helpful community. I also believe this could be especially beneficial for newbies and pupils, giving them a place to ask questions, learn, and see different approaches in action.

Everyone is welcome, regardless of rating. If you're just starting out, that's perfectly fine. If you already have a high rating, you're also very welcome. Different perspectives always make discussions more interesting.

If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, feel free to join: Discord Server Link

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By AlexandruINV, 7 months ago, In English

Hello, Codeforces !

I'm excited to share my first contribution to the community: a complete analysis of Codeforces rating distributions, as the last one I know about is this one from 2024.

After several days of collecting and processing data through the Codeforces API, I built a set of analytics covering user rating brackets, average time needed to reach specific rating milestones, and other interesting insights about progression on the platform.

I’m also looking to build a community around future projects, learning programming, and helping each other improve. No matter your current rank on Codeforces, you’re welcome to join our newly created Discord server ! Now let's get started with the data. I collected information only for users who have participated in at least 6 contests. I also categorized them based on their recent activity: 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, and all time.

If interested in what scripts did I use to make everything, here is the link

Users Active In The Last 6 Months

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The majority of users are concentrated roughly between 800 and 1400 rating, which mostly corresponds to the Newbie and Pupil ranks. This is where the distribution reaches its peak. After that point, the number of users slowly starts to decrease as the rating increases.

The Specialist and Expert ranges still contain a significant number of users, but the drop becomes more visible once we move past Candidate Master (1900+). From there, the number of users in each bracket gets smaller quite quickly.

Ranks such as Master, Grandmaster, and Legendary Grandmaster make up only a small part of the total active user base, which is also reflected by the long tail on the right side of the distribution.

Overall, the shape of the distribution is fairly expected, but it still gives a useful overview of where most active users currently stand in terms of rating.

How many years does it typically take users to reach each rating since starting?

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More detailed statistics also including the top %

Top % meaning for example that if you are top 13% then you are better than 87% of users on Codeforces.

Rating Bracket Users Count Top % Median Years To Get It Average Years To Get It
-100- -1 13 100.0 1.53 1.534
0-99 6 99.986 1.399 1.683
100-199 4 99.979 1.291 1.532
200-299 18 99.975 1.124 1.49
300-399 39 99.955 1.09 1.386
400-499 111 99.913 0.919 1.265
500-599 462 99.791 0.851 1.131
600-699 1599 99.286 0.748 1.003
700-799 4215 97.538 0.659 0.913
800-899 8037 92.929 0.618 0.878
900-999 10345 84.141 0.642 0.914
1000-1099 10868 72.829 0.72 0.985
1100-1199 10290 60.946 0.795 1.069
1200-1299 11410 49.694 0.885 1.159
1300-1399 8333 37.218 0.979 1.268
1400-1499 8141 28.107 1.066 1.365
1500-1599 4795 19.205 1.159 1.466
1600-1699 4421 13.962 1.258 1.588
1700-1799 2414 9.128 1.4 1.737
1800-1899 1595 6.488 1.55 1.891
1900-1999 1324 4.744 1.674 2.03
2000-2099 780 3.297 1.826 2.174
2100-2199 895 2.444 2.019 2.314
2200-2299 444 1.465 2.382 2.655
2300-2399 262 0.98 2.696 2.91
2400-2499 254 0.693 2.916 3.161
2500-2599 121 0.416 3.269 3.504
2600-2699 80 0.283 3.49 3.768
2700-2799 60 0.196 3.599 4.043
2800-2899 40 0.13 3.921 4.259
2900-2999 26 0.086 4.283 4.464
3000-3099 17 0.058 4.697 4.862
3100-3199 8 0.039 4.927 5.181
3200-3299 8 0.031 5.105 5.782
3300-3399 9 0.022 5.381 5.82
3400-3499 4 0.012 5.429 5.851
3500-3599 3 0.008 5.673 6.031
3600-3699 2 0.004 6.176 6.586
3700-3799 2 0.002 6.929 8.22

Now, the same data classified by rank:

Rank Users Count Top % Median Years To Get It Average Years To Get It
Newbie 46007 100.0
Pupil 19743 49.694 0.885 1.159
Specialist 12936 28.107 1.066 1.365
Expert 8430 13.962 1.258 1.588
Candidate Master 2104 4.744 1.674 2.03
Master 1339 2.444 2.019 2.314
International Master 262 0.98 2.696 2.91
Grandmaster 375 0.693 2.916 3.161
International Grandmaster 206 0.283 3.49 3.768
Legendary Grandmaster 53 0.058 4.697 4.862

Users Active In The Last Year

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Users Active In The 3 Years

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All Users Registered on Codeforces

Includes also a max rating statistic

Click for data

Probability to reach next rank

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From To Probability
Newbie Pupil 58.18%
Pupil Specialist 64.64%
Specialist Expert 57.92%
Expert Candidate Master 35.84%
Candidate Master Master 48.76%
Master International Master 33.10%
International Master Grandmaster 65.18%
Grandmaster International Grandmaster 38.90%
International Grandmaster Legendary Grandmaster 18.62%

I hope this analysis gave you a clearer picture of the Codeforces rating situation and how user progression generally looks on the platform. Rating growth is never linear: consistency, practice, and learning from each contest matter much more than short-term gains.

If you found this analysis interesting, feel free to share your thoughts, feedback, or ideas for future data explorations. Good luck and happy coding!

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