<p>Hi guys,
I am thinking about going to the American Mathematical Foundation's Mathcamp, which is supposed to be for talented math students. I have heard it is pretty selective, and only the most dedicated math students apply. How would MIT view this, and is it highly regarded?</p>
<p>I'd like to hear comments about this from any knowledgeable person, even though </p>
<p>1) my son will decide whether or not to go to MathCamp someday on the program's own merits, without regard to impressing admissions officers, </p>
<p>and </p>
<p>2) my son may or may not apply to MIT, depending on what his study goals are the year he applies to college. (He did like the MIT regional information session in St. Paul last year, that is earlier this school year, very well, and now has a favorable impression of MIT.)</p>
<p>I've gone to Mathcamp for the past two years, and it is truly an amazing program. I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who loves math. Not only did I learn more cool math every week than I would learn in a year of high school, I met a lot of incredible campers and staff. (Plus, there's a lot of fun non-math stuff to do too.)</p>
<p>That being said, I am not sure exactly how highly mathcamp by itself weighs in admissions. While it may not be one of those programs that will automatically get you into any college, I don't think that looking good on a resume should be the only reason for choosing a program. Plus, I was able to expand upon the math that I learned at camp on a research project this year that I think looked good on applications. (Also, my MIT interviewer was a statistics teacher, so we spent almost the entire interview talking about math, and I was able to "show off" what I learned at mathcamp.)</p>
<p>I will be going to MIT next year, so mathcamp obviously didn't look that bad on my resume. At CPW, I saw a lot of other mathcampers as well, although some of my mathcamp friends who (in my opinion) were really qualified weren't admitted, so you may need another "hook" besides mathcamp, if you're concerned about college admissions.</p>
<p>I agree with the posters who are saying that you should choose programs and activities because they are valuable to you, not to impress adcoms. That said, my son has attended Mathcamp for the past 4 summers and considers it the best experience of his life. He will be attending either MIT or Caltech in the fall, and then is hoping to return to Mathcamp as a counselor. Mathcamp was certainly part of the overall picture of mathiness that screamed out from his application, but I also feel certain that he would have gotten into both of those schools if he had done something else worthwhile with his summers instead.</p>
<p>I hope I don't put Texas137 on the spot by saying this, but if her son is going to be a counselor at MathCamp in the future, that's just one more reason to apply to MathCamp.</p>