<p>Ben said: "....he applied (and he can tell us, later, if he did"</p>
<p>I actually only applied to three IIT's (Indian Institute of Technology) Harvard, Princeton (top choice), MIT, Caltech (top choice), Harvey Mudd, UC Berkely, and UC Santa Barbara. No Yale for me. I intend to be a math/linguistics major. I have done no research at all, so actually I'm pretty worried if that will hinder me. That and my limited extracirriculars.</p>
<p>Reasonabledad: Just curious. Could you tell me about your kids' stats and courses taken in detail? I'd like to compare myself with other applicants, present and future.</p>
<p>Simfish: Calculus III is multivariable or vector calculus</p>
<p>Simfish: I played Halo and Super Smash Brothers Meelee and had fun working through India high school math problems the last few summers. </p>
<p>Simfish: What's Art of Problem Solving? (Edit: Wait, I searched for it and its pretty cool. I wish I had known about it earlier.) Anyways, how did I improve? Well, I was always advanced in math (i.e. taking algebra in 6th, geo in 7th, and advanced algebra/trig in 8th. But I was just advanced because my parents had forced me to accelerate. Thus, in 9th grade, I didn't do too well on the Calc BC exam or on the AMC exams. Our class was easy, though; that's the only reason I still have a 4.0. </p>
<pre><code> In 10th grade, I wisened up, and really worked hard in my math classes, but still was not where I needed to be. I only scored a 112.5/0 on the AMC/AIME because I was still not aware of how to solve tough questions. But that year, a boy from my school was in the USAPHO semifinals, USAMO, and was also featured in the newspaper for getting a 1600 SAT/36 ACT. I became really jealous, and thus I decided to study math intensely. So over that summer, I reworked through our school's entire textbooks, which solidified my knowledge in the basics. I also went through a geometry, trignometry, and algebra book my uncle had gotten from India that all high schoolers are tested on at the end of each year. The precalclus book (India 12th Standard Board Examination- Math) was all right; I'd say its only slightly tougher than the american kinds. But the geometry (Geometry: Standard X) and trignometry (Trignometry: Standard XI) were great; you were asked to prove things like Heron's formula and apply the formulas and theorems in really clever ways. It was really tough, but I worked through them. It was that time in which I started loving math and physics. I'd say that book was responsible for me getting 5 out of the total 6 problems on geometry and trig right on the AIME last year.
Anyways, in my 11th grade year, I took Discrete Math at a local university, wanting to avoid fall into the math burnout trap, sticking with that elective (In my opinion, I feel it was a mistake for me to take so many math courses. I should've only taken Calc III in 10th grade, not doubled up with Linear Algebra. Then, I could've taken only Discrete Math in 11th, not doing Differential Equations. I'd still be taking only real analysis this year. That way, I would have been less stressed, and had more fun in math competitions. I really regret taking so many of those college courses; I might even have to repeat some in college because all of of my EPGY courses (Calculus III, Diff EQ and Linear Algebra) are not considered "comparitive in difficulty", according to a Princeton math professor I e-mailed. Oddly enough, the courses I'm taking from Cal Poly (Real Analysis and Discrete Math) will be transferred if I go to Princeton, so I will have Real Analysis on my transcript, but not Calc III, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra! Odd. I'm retaking the BC exam for credit this year, by the way. I do not recommend EPGY to others, by the way. Its just not that good (from personal experince). My main point is to warn others not to blindly take too many college classes. It will leave them stressed, take away free time for fun and math competition studying, and may not give them credit in college.
Whoaa.... derailment of thought. Anyways, that Discrete Math course taught me a lot about number theory and combinatorics, which earned me a problem apiece. I just feel like an idiot missing 1 and 2 on the AIME. That's all I did to prepare, to tell you the truth. That trig/geo book was excellent.
That's about all I did. I'm just working through an Indian exam book with questions from tests that are taken from IIT entrance exams, which serve the dual benefit of helping me study for the AIME and helping me get into IIT.
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