AMC

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi my S is a hs sophomore who is good at math, top of the class. He is thinking about taking AMC 12 next year, but his HS has never registered the contest. I was wondering if we need to talk with the school to have AMC registered. Before doing that, I wish to know how prestigious is AMC, if he will be doing well: is it prestigious enough for the most selective schools? is it very hard to get to the next level AIME? Thank you</p>

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<p>^Yes, you might have a talk with the math teacher and have someone register the school. </p>

<p>The math olympics is arguably the most respected competition in high school, and AMC is the first round. Unless it has changed, it is a 30 question test with 5 points for each correct question, so it is out of 150 possible. I think scores above 90 qualify for the next round, AIME. If you really crushed your classes, you can qualify for the AIME with just traditional good high school math classes and no outside math team training. I got in the low 90’s out of 150 on the AMC when I was halfway through Algebra 2; I had 99-100% in all my math classes so you can see what the correlation is. </p>

<p>About 8000 people in the country qualify for AIME, so it is not enough to be a real hook for HYPMS just to qualify. It might be a bigger deal to the other ivies and other competitive colleges. However, getting to the third round (USAMO) is a big deal. I don’t know how hard it is because I think it is easier than when I went through the process. It used to be only 150 people made it country-wide; It may be like 400 now, but the competition has more competitors these days. </p>

<p>So to sum up, AIME qualification is a nice thing to add to the resume’ and is well-known by adcoms, but not a real hook.</p>

3

<p>Do you live near a university? My son took it at Cal Poly (it’s never been offered at our high school), which I don’t think is even on this list, but has offered it every year. </p>

<p><a href=“American Mathematics Competitions”>American Mathematics Competitions;

<p>I believe MIT and Cal Tech ask for your AMC score on the application. </p>