Hi everyone!
Earlier this month, I took the AMC’s. Although I am generally a strong mathematician (strong enough I believe to have qualified for AIME), after looking through the answers I am pretty sure that I did not qualify. Will this impact my chances at admission in MIT? Are there other math competitions that if I do well in, it will compensate for my lack of AIME qualification (I am a high school junior, so it’s not like I can take the AMC’s again)?
Thanks in advance!
Not making AIME won’t hurt you — however, making AIME/USAMO etc. helps you a lot. The AMC’s are the most prestigious/well-known math competition in high school, so it will be hard to compensate for it. However, in other subjects, you can try doing USACO etc.
@momiamfine many universities have their own student-run math competitions (HMMT, CHMMC, PUMaC, etc.) which are pretty much AIME-level.
Is it true that being a female AIME qualifier means a sizable boost at admission to MIT? Or do you need to achieve a certain score (say maybe in the top half or top third amongst all AIME takers) to really show any advantage? What about ARML participation?
@carbmom Being a female AIME qualifier is certainly impressive — but for MIT they have many female AIME qualifiers who apply. To give a significant boost, yes, it would be helpful if they scored around 7 or more on the AIME, or qualified for USA(J)MO. However, that being said, being an AIME qualifier is better than not being one.
There are lots of ways to show that you are good at math. I have never been a strong advocate that math competitions do anything at all to help one become a good mathematician
@collegedad13 I disagree. They are a great means to inspire interest in mathematics. Maybe read this post: https://usamo.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2016/08/13/against-the-research-vs-olympiads-mantra/
@VenomBuds Math contests are generally awful for women and minorities. Cathy Oneil wrote a blog post on math contests. Cathy goes by the nick name the Math Babe. I think it was called “math contests kind of suck”. You should look at it Terence Tao and other prominent mathematicians posted. Lots of prominent mathematicians are against math contests
@VenomBuds I read the post you mentioned. It was written by Evan Chen. He was a student who dropped out of Harvard and went to MIT. He was very immersed in math contests perhaps too much so. Math departments in general have a extremely difficult time with bias towards women and minorities. Math contests amplify the problem. It is often said that math contests are known problems with known solutions whereas the real world contains new problems where we dont even know if a solution exists. Or another way to put it is contests are fast math while most of the world depends on slow math solutions to real problems
My son participates in math competitions and I think they have been very good for him. In our area, most families are interested almost entirely in sports. My son is pretty decent at soccer and tennis but it is nice to have him in groups of kids that also enjoy doing math.
I wouldn’t really say “dropped out” as much as “transferred” since I’m pretty sure the main reasons he went to MIT were for the math culture there (as I’m told…). He is still involved in contest math, and has recently published a book on olympiad geometry.
Math contests are generally great tools, but the end goal shouldn’t be along the lines of getting a gold at IMO. Rather, they should be meant to deepen problem solving skills that you can use later on.
@collegedad13 Math contests like Math Prize for girls are great for women. And yes I know MathBabe and have read that post. I doubt they amplify the problem for minorities and women — MOSP has pink mop meant for girls. But regardless math contests provide a means for kids to get interested in math — that’s simply been shown by example after example. Like MITer said, they should be used to deepen problem solving skills. Terry Tao himself said to enjoy math competitions, and that they build problem solving ability.
And Evan Chen didn’t “drop out of Harvard” — he merely transferred to MIT because of the math sphere and culture at MIT was much more appealing to him.
Just because math problems have solutions it doesn’t render them obsolete lol. They are extremely conducive toward building problem solving ability — many mathematicians can attest to this, like Conway.
@venombuds math contests are Terrible for women. They have been lots of studies written about the gender gap in Math. One thing math contests do is make women feel inferior about their ability and consequentially quit the field. There is a long documented history of that.
Here are some famous quotes on the subject
"These [mathematics] contests are a bit like spelling bees. There is some connection between good spelling and good writing, but the winner of the state spelling bee does not necessarily have the talent to become a good writer, and some fine writers are not good spellers. If there was a popular confusion between good spelling and good writing, many potential writers would be unnecessarily discouraged.
— William Paul Thurston
Professional mathematics is not a sport. In particular, whether one is “better” than one’s peers is not really the right thing to focus on; the more important thing is to ensure that one can do good mathematics in one’s chosen research area.
— Terence Tao
What is important is to deeply understand things and their relations to each other. This is where intelligence lies. The fact of being quick or slow isn’t really relevant. Naturally, it’s helpful to be quick, like it is to have a good memory. But it’s neither necessary nor sufficient for intellectual success.
— Laurent Schwartz
There was little about me that identified the kind of bright student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates, almost by sleight of hand, the most forbidding subjects.
— Alexander Grothendieck
The most profound contributions to mathematics are often made by tortoises rather than hares.
— William Timothy Gowers
I tend to be slower than most mathematicians to understand an argument.
— Stephen Smale"
A number of the above are from Fields Medals winners.
Yes — I know all of the people whose quotes you mentioned. But surely you must realize that it’s not that math competitions have a negative effect. Rather, they are a means to gain problem solving ability, and mainly to inspire interest in mathematics as a subject. I’m not sure you can really dispute that. Granted, mathematical research/what mathematicians do is very different from competitions. But that’s not the point I’m making. I’m merely saying that these competitions help to engender interest in mathematics, and help problem solving, just like physics competitions, biology competitions, etc. etc. etc.
To say that math competitions accentuate the gender gap is a bit misleading. Yes, the gender gap is a big problem in mathematics and the whole sphere of academia, in part due to there not being many famous female mathematicians in the past and the simple continuation of the status quo.
Terry Tao did the IMO numerous times, and he has stated in the past that they were very fun and helped to solidify his interest in mathematics. Note that I am not arguing that math competitions are similar to what mathematicians do as their job in any way.
I think in general this is a good article to read, although I do disagree with some of what is written: https://considerlearning.com/2011/08/25/are-math-competitions-good-or-bad/.
In my opinion, the positives to having relatively low-cost math competitions outweigh the negatives — by a significant margin. If it is a math competition that inspires somebody to go into mathematics, that is simply amazing. But to not have them because they “enlarge” the gender gap doesn’t make any sense to me.
I agree with most of your article that you referenced above.
In the discussion part they referenced the argument that I was trying to make except much more eloquently
“•Math competitions discourage most participants because low scorers conclude they are not “good” at math.
•Those who do well at math competitions get an inaccurate picture of success, only to be stymied in (for example) grad school, which requires more sustained attention, gives less instant feedback, and does not always have a “right” answer.
•Competitions particularly discourage girls, who in general are not as “into” competitions and are more susceptible to feeling mathematically inferior.”
You will note that by the time one gets to college math competitions (except for the Putnam) generally vanish.
Math contests are VERY GOOD for anyone who wins them. Its not gender based activity. If a girl is good at math, she should enter a contest to prove it. Its very sexist to assume girls and blacks do poorly in mathematics. I disagree with collegedad13. If a girl wants to compete in mathematics she should do that. Do not let quotes stop a girl from competing in mathematics. Many girls enjoy the contests, I did that in high school and enjoyed it. I know lots of AIME girls in Colorado and they get into MIT quite often. Any demonstration of mathematics abilities is useful to gain admission to the top techy colleges around the world, including MIT.
@Coloradomama the studies prove you wrong. The math profession as a whole is sexist and misogynistic towards women . Math contests make the gap wider not narrower. Many girls hate the contests . There are lots of things that can be done to help with the gender and racial gap in Math. Contests is not one of them. Here are some suggestions: 1. Hire women and minority math professors. 2. Women in math groups work well. 3. Have sensitivity training for professors each semester. 4. Have community outreach towards under represented groups.
I think that mathematical problem-solving is good for anyone who is interested in it. I have to agree on the whole with collegedad13, though. I have observed more of my daughter’s friends who do not really enjoy competitions of any kind. I write as someone who was quite competitive myself, as a girl. The environment has something to do with it–I think the local schools actively discourage a competitive spirit. This has both advantages and disadvantages.
There’s no reason why a girl who enjoys competing should not compete. Several of the better-known young women mathematicians got their start that way, and later qualified for the IMO.
Pink Mop at MOSP–ugh! I understand that the motives are good, but I don’t think this is the solution to the problem of the under-representation of women at the top levels in math.
I recently qualified for the AIME. Should I notify MIT so they can update my file or should I not bother since decisions will be coming out next week?
@myfuture09 Your decision is made by now, so it wouldn’t have any effect should you update them or not.