Anonymous wrote:Our Harvard college tour guide said she didn’t take any math last 11th grade and had not taken calculus in HS. She is from a southern state that is underrepresented.

Yes it turns out there's much more going on in the world than hacking computers and math. Incredible things like being able to read a book cover to cover.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A middle class or UMC white or Asian male needs MVC in high school for Princeton and MIT if they are not an athletic recruit or legacy/donor.

Not true at all.

For Princeton or MIT, if you are unhooked (URM, athlete, legacy/donor/gender/queer), no white or Asian male gets in without MV.

Anonymous wrote:A middle class or UMC white or Asian male needs MVC in high school for Princeton and MIT if they are not an athletic recruit or legacy/donor.

Not true at all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Fair. My kid almost made top 20% honors on usajmo as a 9th grader (got honorable mention) with only about an hour per day of practice, but he started competition math in 3rd grade. The kids I know who’ve made USAMO, USAJMO, or USAPhO still have a full array of AP courses and a few non STEM extracurriculars, but they all started competition math pretty young.

I also know several kids who’ve spent a ton of time grinding for competition math, and have not even come close to qualifying for an Olympiad. They would have been much better off doing something else with their time.

I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Basically you tutor your kid for over a decade, because must have done regular math starting in kindergarten. Probably he also plays violin or piano to complete the cliche.

Not sure that’s indicative of raw talent or that it’s more deserving for a top 10 college than the kid that took Multivariable but didn’t excel in competitions.

7 years is not “over a decade.” Elementary aged kids who do math competitions are taking CML or MOEMS, likely in a school math club. It’s hardly “tutoring.” Doing competition math and taking multivariable are not mutually exclusive. Most Olympiad level kids end up far beyond multivariable. My kid will be taking multivariable as well as linear algebra next year in 10th grade.

You started teaching your kid math earlier than 3rd grade when the competition math began, hence the “over a decade”.

Honestly, I don’t have an issue with it, it’s more when you chime in that colleges will see taking MV as a negative because the kid didn’t also have a high AIME score. And the nerve to say it’s helicopter parents pushing him into MV when you prep your own kid since kindergarten and you fit the helicopter parent definition to a t.

Don’t you see a bit of hypocrisy here?

This thread has taken a turn for the ridiculous, but at least I understand why you were so nasty in the last post. I'm not the PP who posted the crazy things about needing competition math and MV being bad without it. I was simply correcting your false notion that math olympiad level kids are cutting back on APs, get worse grades, and have no life outside of math. That is simply false for the kids I know at that level, including my kid. They are all taking plenty of APs, getting great grades, doing some ECs, and having a life outside of math. But they also started young. They also weren't singularly focused on USAMO at those ages, but instead on AMC 8, Mathcounts, and a lot of other contests along the way. Math is not a bad ROI for these kids, especially because they genuinely love the pure math. There's no need for you to malign these kids or their parents.

If a kid needed to spend hours per day on competition math to the detriment of everything else, then it's a bad ROI. For OP, it's a moot point, since OP's kid doesn't do competition math and would be too late to the party either way. If the school offers MV and other kids in the school are taking MV, then OP's kid would be best served by taking MV. Taking stats might look like a soft option in college admissions. MV might help OP's kid look like a stronger candidate. If the kid has to retake MV in college anyway, it's better to be part of the cohort who has already been introduced to the material than it is to be part of the cohort seeing it for the first time. One of my kids took MV in 12th. This kid had no interest whatsoever in competition math and no scores to report in their college applications. It was fine.

We all clear now?

MV is a classic sign of white/asian privilege. There is no getting around that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Fair. My kid almost made top 20% honors on usajmo as a 9th grader (got honorable mention) with only about an hour per day of practice, but he started competition math in 3rd grade. The kids I know who’ve made USAMO, USAJMO, or USAPhO still have a full array of AP courses and a few non STEM extracurriculars, but they all started competition math pretty young.

I also know several kids who’ve spent a ton of time grinding for competition math, and have not even come close to qualifying for an Olympiad. They would have been much better off doing something else with their time.

I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Basically you tutor your kid for over a decade, because must have done regular math starting in kindergarten. Probably he also plays violin or piano to complete the cliche.

Not sure that’s indicative of raw talent or that it’s more deserving for a top 10 college than the kid that took Multivariable but didn’t excel in competitions.

7 years is not “over a decade.” Elementary aged kids who do math competitions are taking CML or MOEMS, likely in a school math club. It’s hardly “tutoring.” Doing competition math and taking multivariable are not mutually exclusive. Most Olympiad level kids end up far beyond multivariable. My kid will be taking multivariable as well as linear algebra next year in 10th grade.

You started teaching your kid math earlier than 3rd grade when the competition math began, hence the “over a decade”.

Honestly, I don’t have an issue with it, it’s more when you chime in that colleges will see taking MV as a negative because the kid didn’t also have a high AIME score. And the nerve to say it’s helicopter parents pushing him into MV when you prep your own kid since kindergarten and you fit the helicopter parent definition to a t.

Don’t you see a bit of hypocrisy here?

I didn’t say any of that. There are multiple different posters talking about contest math. Taking MV is not a negative in any sense. OP’s kid absolutely should take MV.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Fair. My kid almost made top 20% honors on usajmo as a 9th grader (got honorable mention) with only about an hour per day of practice, but he started competition math in 3rd grade. The kids I know who’ve made USAMO, USAJMO, or USAPhO still have a full array of AP courses and a few non STEM extracurriculars, but they all started competition math pretty young.

I also know several kids who’ve spent a ton of time grinding for competition math, and have not even come close to qualifying for an Olympiad. They would have been much better off doing something else with their time.

I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Basically you tutor your kid for over a decade, because must have done regular math starting in kindergarten. Probably he also plays violin or piano to complete the cliche.

Not sure that’s indicative of raw talent or that it’s more deserving for a top 10 college than the kid that took Multivariable but didn’t excel in competitions.

7 years is not “over a decade.” Elementary aged kids who do math competitions are taking CML or MOEMS, likely in a school math club. It’s hardly “tutoring.” Doing competition math and taking multivariable are not mutually exclusive. Most Olympiad level kids end up far beyond multivariable. My kid will be taking multivariable as well as linear algebra next year in 10th grade.

You started teaching your kid math earlier than 3rd grade when the competition math began, hence the “over a decade”.

Honestly, I don’t have an issue with it, it’s more when you chime in that colleges will see taking MV as a negative because the kid didn’t also have a high AIME score. And the nerve to say it’s helicopter parents pushing him into MV when you prep your own kid since kindergarten and you fit the helicopter parent definition to a t.

Don’t you see a bit of hypocrisy here?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Fair. My kid almost made top 20% honors on usajmo as a 9th grader (got honorable mention) with only about an hour per day of practice, but he started competition math in 3rd grade. The kids I know who’ve made USAMO, USAJMO, or USAPhO still have a full array of AP courses and a few non STEM extracurriculars, but they all started competition math pretty young.

I also know several kids who’ve spent a ton of time grinding for competition math, and have not even come close to qualifying for an Olympiad. They would have been much better off doing something else with their time.

I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Basically you tutor your kid for over a decade, because must have done regular math starting in kindergarten. Probably he also plays violin or piano to complete the cliche.

Not sure that’s indicative of raw talent or that it’s more deserving for a top 10 college than the kid that took Multivariable but didn’t excel in competitions.

7 years is not “over a decade.” Elementary aged kids who do math competitions are taking CML or MOEMS, likely in a school math club. It’s hardly “tutoring.” Doing competition math and taking multivariable are not mutually exclusive. Most Olympiad level kids end up far beyond multivariable. My kid will be taking multivariable as well as linear algebra next year in 10th grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Fair. My kid almost made top 20% honors on usajmo as a 9th grader (got honorable mention) with only about an hour per day of practice, but he started competition math in 3rd grade. The kids I know who’ve made USAMO, USAJMO, or USAPhO still have a full array of AP courses and a few non STEM extracurriculars, but they all started competition math pretty young.

I also know several kids who’ve spent a ton of time grinding for competition math, and have not even come close to qualifying for an Olympiad. They would have been much better off doing something else with their time.

I don’t see how that’s a good thing. Basically you tutor your kid for over a decade, because must have done regular math starting in kindergarten. Probably he also plays violin or piano to complete the cliche.

Not sure that’s indicative of raw talent or that it’s more deserving for a top 10 college than the kid that took Multivariable but didn’t excel in competitions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Fair. My kid almost made top 20% honors on usajmo as a 9th grader (got honorable mention) with only about an hour per day of practice, but he started competition math in 3rd grade. The kids I know who’ve made USAMO, USAJMO, or USAPhO still have a full array of AP courses and a few non STEM extracurriculars, but they all started competition math pretty young.

I also know several kids who’ve spent a ton of time grinding for competition math, and have not even come close to qualifying for an Olympiad. They would have been much better off doing something else with their time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

The chances of qualifying to USAMO by practicing one hour a day over two years are zero. These kids usually qualify for AIME in middle school and start competition focused preparation way earlier than that. There’s a lot of math covered poorly in the regular curriculum like geometry or not covered at all like number theory. Not to mention that if you only qualify in 12th grade it won’t matter for college admissions. Many of these kids can’t take a heavy load of AP classes so their weighted GPA won’t be as impressive. Also, add to that the cheating scandals clouding the competition so you may be competing against contestants with an unfair advantage. Even then, maybe a third of USAMO qualifiers make it to a top tier school, the rest have second tier results.

So yeah, math competitions is a viable path for maybe 50-100 students out of the 7000 that take AIME, or the 100000 that take AMC.

Take multivariable and Statistics instead.

Our Harvard college tour guide said she didn’t take any math last 11th grade and had not taken calculus in HS. She is from a southern state that is underrepresented.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a note to those who think calc only counts in STEM...if your kid is aiming for PE/Hedge funds, take MV if you can in high school. Finance admissions adore the math whizzes.

LOL

Absolutely no one in PE/Hedge funds thinks taking MV in high school makes you a math whiz. They are looking for USAJMO, USAMO and IMO.

You mean those silly competitions patents like you pay for for bragging rights?

LOL

If you make it to IMO, you are picking among HYPSM's and using the rest of T10s as safety. Silly competition indeed!!

For anyone interested in engineering, which was the OPs post, doing competition math with the goal of targeting top 10 is a complete waste of time because there’s little alignment with the math needed for those majors.

For a good understanding of science the time is better spend having a basic understanding of Multivariable, linear algebra and differential equations even at community college level because that will help tremendously in physics and chemistry.

If a math major, sure IMO will help, but that’s 6 students a year, even if you qualify for USAMO, it’s unlikely you’ll make it into top 10 colleges on the back of it alone, and to get to that level, competition math is your extracurricular starting from 6th grade if not earlier. That’s way too soon to lock in what a kid will do in the future.

That’s why math competition is a poor time investment. To be competitive, USAMO level you need to work hard 4-8 years. You can get the advanced math coursework, calculus to differential equations, in two years, and then you have time to do other things.

Whether or not math competitions are a good ROI is kind of nuanced. The amount of time needed to reach USAMO levels varies by student. Some get there with a couple years of working maybe 7 hours per week on competition math. Others grind 2-3 hours per day for many years and never manage to qualify for an olympiad. If a kid is passionate about pure math and proof writing, then it's a fine ROI. If they're so good that they can reach olympiad levels without too much time expenditure, it's a good ROI. If neither of those apply, the kid should invest their time in some other STEM activity that they love. Having your narrative be that you funneled inordinate amounts of time into competition math for somewhat middling results is not going to be especially compelling for T10 admissions officers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A middle class or UMC white or Asian male needs MVC in high school for Princeton and MIT if they are not an athletic recruit or legacy/donor.

No. What they need to do for engineering at schools like MIT and Princeton is to be at the top of the math heap at their particular high school. And if that happens to be Calculus BC, that's totally fine. No college is expecting people to commute to a community college to take higher level math.

Unfortunately, less than 50 percent of American high schools even offer basic calculus. And students in those districts are frozen out from most engineering programs. Which is a waste of talent. And it's a very small percentage of high schools in America that even offer MV.

But, in the DC area, schools like Whitman and Langley will offer it. Plus the magnets. I have no idea how private school students in this area are even remotely competitive for engineering at the top universities.

There are several schools above Princeton for engineering. Please don't put them in the same sentence with MIT for engineering.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A middle class or UMC white or Asian male needs MVC in high school for Princeton and MIT if they are not an athletic recruit or legacy/donor.

No. What they need to do for engineering at schools like MIT and Princeton is to be at the top of the math heap at their particular high school. And if that happens to be Calculus BC, that's totally fine. No college is expecting people to commute to a community college to take higher level math.

Unfortunately, less than 50 percent of American high schools even offer basic calculus. And students in those districts are frozen out from most engineering programs. Which is a waste of talent. And it's a very small percentage of high schools in America that even offer MV.

But, in the DC area, schools like Whitman and Langley will offer it. Plus the magnets. I have no idea how private school students in this area are even remotely competitive for engineering at the top universities.

MIT and Princeton can’t take all the students that are in top of the math heap at their high school. So they need to sort them out somehow.

And choosing Statistics will be one of the ways they sort them out.