<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>So I was looking into something to do this break, and I was thinking of registering for USAMTS so that I can start a round of problems.
USA</a> Mathematical Talent Search</p>
<p>Has anyone had experience with this? (This is a MIT thread :)</p>
<p>Did you enjoy doing it? (I have never done math competitions like this before)</p>
<p>Input would be nice. I'm either doing this or I'm CADing or both.</p>
<p>I did that sophomore year and sucked badly. I turned in 2 rounds and only got about half the points each time. I still ended up qualifying for AIME through AMC; that’s much easier than qualifying through USAMTS.
It’s fun, but I don’t think it’ll matter for your admission to MIT (I knew a perfect scorer who got rejected).</p>
<p>I agree. USAMTS is pretty hard… I’m a usamoer and can only get 3-4 problems every time. On the up side, I find it alot of fun.</p>
<p>USAMTS is pretty much a fun only contest. Anyone good enough to make aime through usamts will easily qualify through amc. Also, doing really well on usamts and failing other math contests will only raise eyebrows at you (it’s really not that hard to cheat, we math folk tend to just abide by an honor code).</p>
<p>Try it out. Registering is not a commitment, you can always just not submit solutions.</p>
<p>I did USAMTS for the last 3 years, and I think it taught me a lot of stuff (how to latex, how to write proofs, and…how to bash problems in ugly ways). The USAMTS is not really as accepted as the AMC, so there’s not really a point in doing it for the sake of applications. If you like math, though, you might enjoy it.</p>
<p>is it possible to qualify for the usamo through the usamts and then the aime?</p>
<p>if you qualify for aime through usamts you have a 100 amc for usamo index purposes. So then you’ll need about an 11 aime. Possible, but hard.</p>
<p>This year I qualified for USAMO through USAMTS and 11 AIME 
(But I also took AMCs and got a 103.5)</p>
<p>My take on anyone considering it: If you want a try at math contests, this one is one of the more difficult ones. It’s hard to do without prior math contest experience. I made USAMO and got only a silver medal this year. It’s different than most math contests because its take home rather than on-site. There are also a plethora of on-site competitions hosted by colleges, such as those at princeton, stanford, and Harvard-MIT (cohosted). The AMCs are also on-site and perhaps the most recognized.</p>
<p>And regarding post 2, I know that usamts is incredibly hard to get a perfect score on. It requires problem solving ability, time commitment, and proofreading. A perfect score on USAMTS is better than qualifying for USAMO in my opinion. This year IMO gold medalist Xiaoyu He only got a 87 / 100 on USAMTS. And no one got a perfect score this year.</p>
<p>I would take WLsilver’s words with a grain of salt. As a 4x USAMO qualifier with many other mathematical and scientific accomplishments (I won’t elaborate for the sake of anonymity), I don’t believe that USAMTS can be compared to other math contests in the sense that it is a ** take home ** test and can be gamed by anyone who has the proper resources and sufficient lack of integrity. </p>
<p>Now, that’s not to say that USAMTS isn’t a wonderful contest and I do believe that most of the top performers perform well on accord of their own merit. Nonetheless, the two forms of math contests cannot be reconciled.</p>
<p>Well, USAMTS encourages participants to look online to research about how to answer the problems. And we were assuming the OP didn’t want a contest to cheat on - simply one that was difficult and enjoyable. I’m not saying its exactly like a non-takehome competition, but the USAMTS still gives people a good math challenge.</p>