Hi guys! I’m currently a rising junior and I was thinking of applying to SUMaC. I was wondering if those who went there before could say how competitive it was and whether it was worth it or not. Thanks!
I applied and got in last year. I did have a friend who ended up going. The competition for the program is insane, since you are competing against some of the top math talent in the US. We are talking about multiple time USAMO qualifiers or perfect scorers on the AIME. He said he learned a lot and was definitely worth going. (He still talks about it every now and then.)
So, the application was due last night. What were everyone’s stats that applied?
I applied. I’ve very little experience with competitive math and the like - never taken AMC, USAMO, AIME etc. outside of middle/elementary school - but I’m hoping I have a chance. I’m in my junior year taking multivariable calc and I’ve already taken linear algebra. Solved all the problems, and I’m fairly happy with my solutions (none of them seemed sketchy or anything). I like to think I’m a good essay writer too, and my teacher gave me a good rec. 1500 PSAT if it matters.
I applied.
PSAT: 1470 (730 English, 740 math)
ACT: 35 composite (34 reading, 35 English, 35 math, 36 science)
AMC10: 71.5
AMC12: 61.5 (oof. I didn’t include this in my application.)
GPA: 3.996 unweighted (1 A- in Biology H freshman year)
Class Rank: 31 out of 531
I’ve been to the Utah state math contest for the past four years. I am on the presidency of my school’s math club. I am currently in AP Calc BC as a junior and I am taking AP Stats next year. I have gotten straight A’s in every math class I’ve taken.
I didn’t feel much confidence in the admission exam. I felt decent about my solutions to 1, 2, 4, and 5, but my solutions to 3 and 6 were questionable.
I got recs from my Calc teacher and my math club advisor, both of which I think were pretty good. I also rewrote some of the essay questions multiple times to improve my applications.
Overall, I put a lot of effort into my application, even though I was busy this week with other things. I ended up submitting it at 11:52 PM on Wednesday night, which was not the best idea. Nothing on my application was really that great or noticeable. I feel least confident about the admission exam and most confident about my essays.
Did you apply @Entoal ?
I applied too.
SAT: 1530 L
SAT II: 800 Math 2 and 800 Chem
AMC12: 88.5 (bad for a junior, and no AIME :(, definitely low point)
GPA: 4.51 W, 4.0 UW, easily top 5 in my class
I participated in USAMTS for two years and got bronze once. I’ve won some irrelevant local competitions, but I guess they were worth including too.
I self-studied Calc BC as a sophomore, got a 5 with a 5 AB subscore. I’m taking AP Stats and Multivariable Calculus for university credit this year.
The admissions test was the highlight of my application. I think I solved all the problems correctly in a thicc 29 page solutions file full of diagrams and beautiful latex. I would really want to discuss #5 with someone who had a graph theoretical approach…
I got 4 recs, one from my college counselor, 2 from my past AP science teachers, and one from my current math teacher. I think they’re pretty good since two of them had already written successful recs for me, but I’m concerned that this may be too many recs. I seem like a very “thick” applicant 
The essays weren’t as good as they could have been. I procrastinated them for the longest time and stayed up till insane hours of the night perfecting them the last 4 days before everything was due. I’m pretty happy with them, but I wish I had spent maybe a couple of days more on them. I focused a lot in my essays on the stuff that they cover in Program II since that’s the one I’m applying to and I tried to make them pretty humorous, since serious essays wouldn’t have fared that well, I don’t think.
I also won my school’s science fair in the math category so I included that project, which honestly wasn’t that great. But hopefully it shows my enthusiasm to do math independently.
I’m honestly surprised at how much work I put into this application. I’m happy how I managed to crank out all the essays in the final couple of days and still submit everything on time. Hopefully my massive solutions file impresses the commission as much as it impressed myself.
Does anyone know how many people applied this year? I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a lot of discussion, considering that allegedly like 700 people applied.
Are you applying to any other summer programs @tabularmethod?
I was going to apply to the Ross Program but I was so focused on my SUMaC application that I didn’t even start a Ross application. There are only two weeks left to apply to Ross, and since admission is on a rolling basis every spot could be already filled. Aside from that, I am planning on applying to the Texas State Honors Summer Math Camp, which I think I have a better chance of getting into than SUMaC or Ross.
Also, I was going to apply to Carnegie Melon’s National High School Game Academy (as a backup summer camp if I didn’t get into anything else), but even if I was admitted, I would’ve had to commit before I would have found out about SUMaC, which is my first choice.
What else are you applying to @Entoal ?
Yeah I kind of forgot about the Ross application too. I’m in the process of finishing the PROMYS admissions test, but since that’s also a difficult camp to get into, I need to look into some summer safety options, maybe like AMSP (?). I don’t see an admissions test on the Texas Honors summer camp. It seems that it would be difficult to differentiate between students there…
Any news on SUMaC?
Just to put it out there, the math programs y’all are applying to do care about AIME qualification. I personally know people who went to Ross (myself), SUMaC, PROMYS, USA/Canada Mathcamp, and Awesome Math. All of the people who went were AIME qualifiers or had some type of research experience with math.
As no one has yet begun a thread on the topic of SUMaC applications, I have decided to begin one here. I intend for the structure of this thread to be similar to that of the threads for previous years. Thus, topics on which the reader is encouraged to post include:
- Your stats (no. of probs solved, essays, recs, extracurriculars, etc.)
- Why are you going?
- Expectations?
- (For previous SUMaCers) How is the experience like?
- plans if rejected
Just an FYI that I merged another SUMaC forum into this one. Please keep all SUMaC discussion here!
Applied as a sophomore, 4.0 GPA unweighted, 4.58 weighted; SAT 720 EBRW, 790 Math (taken two years ago as part of a talent search program; will take again next year); ACT math score of 36 (same); SAT II Math Level 2 800; took MV Calc/ Linear Algebra last year; taking graph theory and non-Euclidean geometry this year; AIME qualifier last year and this year;likely to be AMC 10 DHR this year; ARML participant last year and this year; first and second place rankings in state math competitions. Solved 5 1/2 of the 6 problems but did work on all. Got 3 recs, all from math teachers. Also applying to HCSSiM. Good luck, everyone.
I was able to solve all of them, but I was only able to reduce the lower bound for 6 to 48. My essays were, at the very least (I think) aesthetically interesting, as I spoke much for my love of mathematics through it’s treatment as if it were an art (none of the usual "maths is logical and consistent stuff). I also attempted to demonstrate there my experience through offering more unconventional examples results I found beautiful in mathematics (such as the Schroeder Bernstein theorem), rather than more trite ones such as Euler’s formula. Indeed, even when I wrote of poetry as one of my non-academic interests, I soon wrote of how both poetry and mathematics were so innately similar (I spoke of both as “expressing one’s inner intuitions and images” by the use of language). For why I wanted to join sumac, I wrote mostly of research, the opportunity to learn algebraic topology, etc. However, I also spent a small section speaking on how I longed to be able to have casual (and more serious) banter on mathematics with those as passionate about it as I, for I have not the opportunity to do so where I live, and congregations of mathematicians online (such as stackexchange) discourage such Banter.
Otherwise, here are my statistics:
Male rising senior from India
41/42 IB, 6 in one subject and 7 in all other subjects, including IB Maths HL
7 A* and 1 A in GCSEs, including an A* in Additional Mathematics
Write occasionally in a blog on mathematical philosophy (4 posts so far on ontology and aesthetics, though only 12 followers.)
Run maths club in school (but no one else is really interested in maths here)
have completed Kumon Maths program with a 5 years ahead of school distinction in 2016
Wrote a paper presenting a (painfully inefficient and restricted) proof of the Borsuk Ulam Theorem for our Internal Assessment
Currently writing an extended essay finding a new method to prove variants of the Toeplitz conjecture that do not rely on smoothness.
Have studied a few college level, proof based textbooks such as Apostol’s calculus, Armstrong’s basic topology and Scheinerman Mathematics: A discrete introduction.
Overall, my greatest fear is the excessive lengths of my solutions (80 pages). I really do hope I get in, for I have not the propensity to perform either social service or Athletics in service to my Resume, so admission to such a program is crucial.
I’m a little confused about how people have such massive solution files (60+ pages). What did you guys do to write so much? Did you elaborately discuss your approaches to the problems and the dead ends, or did you just provide proofs?
I feel like I did something wrong for just having dry theorems and reasoning without any personal input… and plus I only had 29-latexed pages… 
1 page per answer over here.
29 is more than enough. I submitted 20 back and front pages and got in.
Do they accept a certain number of sophomores and juniors?
Does anyone know when the results are to be announced?
Based on last year’s result decisions, I would think that this year we will find out around April 17th.
Although I might be completely wrong. It doesn’t officially say anywhere on their website.
How important are essays? Reading this thread makes me worried because I did not spend that much time on them and my responses were short. In fact, I did not even think of the written response as an essay and treated them more like short response questions.