Competitive math: what level is needed to stand out?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Would passing the AMC be a “hook” or tipping point (given an otherwise strong resume) to Carnegie? CalTech? MIT?

What about passing the AIME?

Making USAMO?

Would smaller mathematics competitions really mean that much?

I’m already in college, so this is just out of curiosity.

2

@RMIBstudent Several thousand students qualify for the AIME each year, and I’d bet at least half of them score less than 5 (I don’t remember the exact numbers, but MAA posts the data online). Qualifying for AIME is nice, but not super impressive at top science/math schools. If you score well then it may look nice.

“Passing the AIME” and “qualifying for USA(J)MO” are basically synonymous, and roughly 500 or so each year qualify for one of them. But there’s a big difference between qualifying for USAMO and scoring 0 on it, versus scoring 7 on it, versus scoring much higher.

Depends – I participated in a few local competitions in addition to AMC/AIME/USAMO, and didn’t bother listing many of them on my applications.

3

@MITer94 It’s possible that the competitions have gotten more selective since you’ve graduated (unless if you’ve been keeping up with them?). I went to a highly ranked IB school, and my friends and I were taking past AMC tests as practice and acing* them - then came the actual AMC and only one person got past it. Yet several got into MIT/Princeton/Stanford/Caltech.

  • not always literally, but doing really well, lol
4

Afaik, the cutoff scores for AIME qualification have remained at or below 100 or 120 (with the exception of the small mishap this year). However, the AMC and AIME (as well as the USAMO) have likely gotten more difficult over time, due to the larger number of students taking them.

I took the USAMO in 2010 although I’ve been hearing of minor tweaks to qualification rules, indices, etc. Hopefully 2010 wasn’t that long ago. :slight_smile:

5

Like in 2012 everyone walked out of the AMC saying that it was the hardest one they’d ever seen. They said the same thing in 2013 and 2014.

6

@RMIBstudent I remember 2011 and 2012 being fairly difficult. The 2011 AIME I was also comparatively hard (you can tell just by the USAMO indices that year).