<p>I've been competing on my high school's math team for the past 3 years, but never made it to the USA Math Olympiad (I only made it to the AIME). One of my personal goals was to be a part of the USAMO at least once in my high school career, and I hope I can fulfill that in this upcoming school year (my senior year). If I make it to the USAMO, can I kill two birds with one stone by improving my application, even though the USAMO doesn't occur until April?</p>
<p>Thanks for your advice</p>
<p>you may have already gotten accepted by april. who knows. if you're deferred early it definitely helps, but you can always update your record if you apply regular too. its not a guarentee (but you knew that). the same thing happened to a friend two years ago (he got to the USAMO only in his senior year), but he still didnt get into yale, princeton, or penn. (he didnt apply to stanford) and trust me, everything else about him was above-great.</p>
<p>Your USAMO Index likely won't be available, but a super high AMC score (135+) can be indicative that you will likely qualify for USAMO. There is time to send in that score and it can potentially help your application.</p>