<p>Since this post is still fairly recent, I figured I’d chime in with my $0.02 cents after reading this fairly hilarious thread. </p>
<p>OP, I am a math major at a <em>crappy</em> state university. My high school offered Calc AB for the first time my senior year and I had effectively zero University-level mathematics experience when I arrived here. Three years later, I have a Goldwater, a standing offer to attend graduate school at Yale, and am halfway through my school’s graduate curriculum. </p>
<p>Am I a “math mind”? No! There are at least two people in my class (HERE at <em>crappy</em> state university!) that are markedly more advanced in the classical sense. They know “more” math. However, I jumped on the most advanced research opportunities I could find at every step and quickly found myself surpassing the kids that were at your level exiting high school plus or minus an olympiad. </p>
<p>Math is not a rat race. If you think you’re behind that just means that you know enough about what’s out there to take the next step. There will always be people that look smarter than you, faster than you,… that has nothing to do with how good of a researcher YOU will be. You’re more than prepared enough to jump into undergrad at Harvard, so just do it and quit being such a b***h.</p>
<p>P.S. My first undergraduate math course was Calculus II. (At the level of the Calc BC test).</p>