The High School Honors Statistics Contest was created in 2007 in conjunction with the Kyoto Laureate Symposium that year, which was held at UCSD. One of the laureates was Hirotugu Akaike, who received the prize for his "major contribution to statistical science".
At the suggestion of Jeff Remmel, the Honors Statistics Contest was inaugurated that year to recognize the work of Probability and Statistics high school teachers in the San Diego County and the excellence of their students. The contest was held each year up until 2019, with the support of the UCSD Department of Mathematics and the UCSD Division of Physical Sciences.
Each year the contest attracted around 50 participants from about 10 high schools throughout the county to participate in a two-part statistics competition held on the UCSD campus (typically in April).
The contest had two parts. The first part consisted of 25 multiple-choice questions and lasted 60 minutes. The second part consisted of 4 written-response questions and lasted 90 minutes. The material covered the AP Placement Probability and Statistics and Probability and Statistics California Mathematics Content Standards, and the College Board AP Statistics content.