Math Competition Success (and congratulations)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Blair Magnet Math curriculum has a number of undergraduate level Math courses (e.g., linear algebra, discrete mathematics) beyond the typical multivariable Calculus endpoint in most high schools.

I didn't take math beyond first year calculus so I don't know the usual sequence but GDS offers multivariable calc, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, and advanced linear algebra. Advanced linear algebra is the only one with a prerequisite beyond AP Calc.

[Anonymous]

That's great. Not many privates do. Kudos to GDS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All educational systems have limits ... the private schools are just more limiting for some highly performing students in Mathematics.

But aren't we now back to where the thread started? GDS does not seem to have inappropriately limited the student who participated in the Math Olympiad, or others who did well in similar contests. I really think that when we're talking about this extreme level of talent, it's not the school or the curriculum that's generating the talent. Instead, it's an innate capability of the student that the school just needs to be capable of nurturing/developing. Many of these extreme-talent students are drawn to the math magnets at Blair & TJ, but those clearly aren't the only schools capable of developing the talent.

[Anonymous]

You're quite right. The difference is the students at TJ and Blair Magnet are not lone wolves like the sole student at GDS potentially left to navigate the terrain of rules and regulations by his lonesome. Accomplishment under such conditions are perhaps even greater.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're quite right. The difference is the students at TJ and Blair Magnet are not lone wolves like the sole student at GDS potentially left to navigate the terrain of rules and regulations by his lonesome. Accomplishment under such conditions are perhaps even greater.

Perhaps your "lone wolf" gloss fits, but I'm just as capable of imagining an alternate scenario where the sole student at GDS gets all sorts of special one-on-one nurturing that he might have been denied at a math magnet like Blair. There's really no way for us to know which scenario fits better, so it's probably best that we just accept that both public and private can be productive paths to success, without imposing any additional value judgment on how those paths might be constructed.

[Anonymous]

No one to my knowledge disputes the observation that public and private schools can be productive pathways to success. In fact, there are many successful individuals that never attended a private or public secondary school in America so you can add yet a third pathway to success.

Well, I guess it hinges on what you mean by success?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're quite right. The difference is the students at TJ and Blair Magnet are not lone wolves like the sole student at GDS potentially left to navigate the terrain of rules and regulations by his lonesome. Accomplishment under such conditions are perhaps even greater.

GDS has a pretty successful math team -- no one's by his/her lonesome. At least not any more than you inherently are when you're tops in the nation and internationally ranked at something.

I'm sure that there are kids for whom the magnet scenario is better than the private school scenario. And kids for whom the private school scenario is better than the magnet school scenario. And I wonder if HS is the crucial moment anyway -- both earlier and subsequent experiences strike me as more determinative.