<p>collegealum314: I haven’t seen any of the analysis in connection with the AIME-teaching workshop at the MAA meeting–just the announcement of the workshop itself. So it’s possible that an incorrect conclusion was being drawn from the existence of clusters of USAMO qualifiers. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I think that the types of questions set in the “regular” math classes differ quite a lot from school to school. This would tend to provide an edge for students in a magnet school, without any directed preparation for competitions (Even within a school, the quality of the questions depends on the mathematical strength of the individual teachers–e.g., locally, I think the 6th-grade honors math teacher is actually a stronger mathematician than the sole Calc BC teacher). </p>
<p>But overall, your comments are consistent with my observations: It’s not clear to most people to what extent students’ accomplishments reflect the environment at their school vs. the individual talents (and work!) of the students. I’d guess that people who did not attend a magnet school may–on average–overestimate the benefit of the environment. And the observation that there is a laissez faire attitude toward competitions, at a magnet school, would just reinforce my belief that MIT doesn’t give enough credit to USAMO qualifiers from schools where there are multiple qualifiers. (Our local school is not in this category.)</p>
<p>alh: I think that international students have the hardest time of anyone, in gaining admission to top U.S. schools as undergrads. If the American “top scorers” were being displaced by even higher-performing international students, I could see a clear rationale for that. I don’t think that’s what’s happening, though. (Also, I’d like to keep the discussion limited to adequately represented groups of citizens or green-card holders.)</p>