College student structural design competition is an important platform to train students' creativity and handing ability, as well as team cooperation consciousness. Conceptual design, optimization analysis and model making are the three important aspects in college student structural design competition. Optimization analysis is the key to get good competition results. The characteristics of the structure analysis software widely used at home and abroad are comparatively analyzed. Results show that MIDAS is the ideal structure analysis software for optimization analysis in college student structural design competition. Basic processes and key points in MIDAS simulating analysis are presented for reference in model comparing and structural optimization analysis.