Um, no. They are all talented. Extremely talented. Practice helps a lot, and will sort those among the Extremely talented, but they are all in the top .001 percent of math ability
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This comes full circle to the original question of whether the level of competition is sustainable.
Yes.
Eta: so for all that handwringing about the opaque holistic admissions and test optional, it seems like the market for objective measures created itself and infiltrated the admissions world.
The types of problems in the higher level math contests arenât the sort you just cram for. Many of the elite career mathematicians have been stars in these types of competitions, leading up the Putnam exam in college. The scores have a long tail, and there arenât very many who can scale to the highest level of these competitions.
I know a lot of people see all the Asian Americans in these competitions and think itâs just about cramming . Maybe true for the mid level scorers, but the high scoring students are a deeply talented bunch.
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Because the ones who donât seem to want to accept it are the ones who either already got lucky, or are pretty sure that if they just work a bit harder, then they will get lucky too.
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I think it depends where you live. ORM from our area get into top schools without doing any of that because they donât have access to it.
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You got it backwards. These competitions have been around long before holistic admissions existed. Not too long ago, a spot at any one of the most prestigious schools is practically guaranteed. Not any more, gradually because of holistic admissions.
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Iâd say âmanyâ of the top math competitors studying college math before high school is an understatement. In my area, our top math students took calculus in eighth grade, practiced many hours per week for competitive math, and only barely qualified for usamo.
Same could be said for attendance at tony prep schools.
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Competitions at the levels of IMO/USAMO involve distinctly different types of math skills/talents than being on a highly accelerated math path. Participants need to be both highly talented in the type of math few HSs even touch upon and lots of preparation.
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sounds like water polo
We are in NJ , so itâs quite competitive for an ORM male student.
A good friend is a Putnam fellow (from decades ago) and one of the few to have gotten a perfect score! I am SO grateful for holistic admissions because our paths would never have crossed had we each gone to schools that admitted students for only one type of talent. Iâd like to think that weâve both brought something to each otherâs world. Really, it takes all kinds!
I will add that I suspect it would be impossible to âstudy your wayâ to his mathematical prowess. Itâs a God-given gift. Sure, he worked at it, but as a mutual friend noted, âWhen I met him, I realized I was simply âgood at mathâ and that there was a whole other level I hadnât even realized existed!â
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Actually it is. To prepare for AMC10/12/AIME/USAMO, the coaches in those programs do all the research on how to solve all kinds of those competition problems and then coach those kids to do that. Those programs are good because of the coaches. If the coaches leave, they will follow the coaches.
Putnam is different, I understand.
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There is a heck of a lot of overlap in the level 9 and 10 groups which probably results in taking fewer total spots at elite schools then would be otherwise expected.
Out of the 50 US RSI attendees, there are usually around 15 or so ISEF Regeneron kids and another 10 or so from various academic olympiads - mostly math.
Yale issues academic likely letters to about 100 STEM kids each year and invites them to campus (at least they do in non-plague years) for a YES-W recruiting weekend. The year following my sonâs RSI summer, the YES-W visit amounted to an RSI/ISEF reunion.
Looking at the list linked above, about every skill or interest has been turned into a club sport.
And, like with club sports, those participating will tell you that success in their particular niche pursuit is the true measure of excellence.
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More like Olympic level sport, not club sports. That is what the academic competitions are modeled after
But before college, itâs not a level playing field.
Yes, absolutely. About a third of the people who had the Level 9 had one or both of the Level 8s, and I avoided double counting them.
My son was looking forward to attending but it was canceled. I hear that typically half of them to commit to Yale after YES-W, but I heard the commits decreased given the canceled program.
Not sure I follow . . . are you suggesting that competitive academics for grade schoolers is an âOlympic level sport?â Or are you suggesting that starting with intensive training and specialization for academic competitions at an early age is similar to the process one might follow with any sport, olympic or otherwise?
If the latter then that is my point.
Our neighborâs dad is a retired math professor. He came from a poor Appalachian state and had no expectation beyond going to the local state college (he didnât apply anywhere else). He won the state math competition in high school (this was the late 1950s) and the professor in charge said âWhere are you going to college? Iâll phone up Harvard, you need to go there.â So thatâs where he went instead for undergrad and PhD.
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