if you want to do well in those exams, it is a multi-year & all year round commitment like any other ECs.
I generally agree with that. Winning a medal used to be more or less a sure thing for a tippy top, but much less so now.
If by ādo wellā, you mean being at the IMO selection level with the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program and such, sure thatās true. However, thatās only a few dozen kidsā¦ a near negligible portion of participants. I expect the overwhelming majority of test takers have little to no prep, including some who do what Iād consider very well.
As mentioned above, I used to participate in Math League and various math contests in HS and won some regional level awards in various competitions. I believe that my teammates and I did not do any prepā¦ certainly not prepping multi-year all year round. Iām sure some students and parents are really big on prep and spend all year training for math competitions, like an athlete might do for their athletic competitions. However, this is not the norm, nor is it required to do what Iād consider āwell.ā
Your problem seems to be that you equate the number of people who advanced to the higher levels of competitions with the number of people who wanted to advance. Thereās a big difference. Obviously, few could advance to the highest level, by the very nature of these competitions.
What? I didnāt say anything of the sort. If anything I said the opposite ā repeatedly saying that there are more āseriousā participants than just those in the top x% who are invited to participate in other tests.
You still misunderstood. Serious participants are the ones who wanted to advance, but not those casual ones who took AMC 10 or 12 at their high schools because their math teachers asked them to.
The original claim was " >95% (if thatās the right number) in your scenario isnāt serious about competitions." This implies all of the 95% who are not invited to take AIME are not āserious.ā This is different from saying that there exists some students who only casually take AMC 10/12 because their math teach asked them to, and arenāt really interested.
I think itās time to agree to disagree and move on.
Yes, we should move on.
Since you went to school, I think every possible competitive skill has become professionalized. In elementary school there are kids going to specialized math clubs like āRussian School of Mathā and those kids are being prepared for math competitions. Other elementary school kids are playing club soccer year-around. Or chess lessons or whatever ā¦
How long before Amy Chua will be seen as only a low level ātiger parentā compared to what may become the norm (at least among upper middle class families) in the future?
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Iām curious whether it makes a difference. Are scores on competitive math tests going up over time? Are the best soccer players getting better over time? I do think the best chess players today are better than 30 years ago, but thatās primarily due to computers not ātiger parents.ā
I was good at math, but not great. Iāve met people who are great at math, and for me, no amount of extra classes would have gotten me to their level. So Iām not really sure that all these classes are doing anything except transferring money from parents to coaches.
Not sure if you have looked at the problems on the AMCs recently but you might find it interesting to try to sit down and do one of the recent tests within the time limit. The recent tests are a much higher level of difficult than those ten years ago.
I do not think there are many casual AMC takers that have decent scores, say top 30 to 40 percent. I also do not think there are many kids that do not prepare for these tests that will do well on them. The benefits of doing them for those that like math are that oftentimes you find a group of kids that also enjoy talking and thinking about math plus it makes SAT math a piece of cakeā¦
Our GC thinks that happens, but it is just his anecdotal observation after 20 yrs at our HS. He said there are some schools where the number of acceptances seems to build over time as top students apply and attend. He thinks that especially smaller LACs track that kind of data.
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I adhor tiger parenting and I think Amy Chua gave some terrible advice. However, if you want to raise your child to compete at the Olympic level, whether in a sport or an academic discipline, raw talent (which is absolutely necessary) alone isnāt sufficient. It takes years of training. I donāt think we should be surprised by that.
Same here. My eldest was a big math geek. The admin pushed him through everything available in our area. We never once heard of any kind of math test or competition. I only know of it now through here.
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There exists a group of students/parents that spend an enormous amount of time prepping for almost any type of academic standardized test, and this group seems to be tremendously overrepresented on CC forums. However, it is not the norm. I know several people who have taken the AMC or other math contests in more recent years, none of which did large amounts of prep, yet some still did quite wellā¦ not AIME level, but well above top 30-40%. I believe this group is far more common that the group that preps all year round for multiple years. I donāt think anywhere near 30-40% of students taking the AMC are doing huge amounts of prep, so by definition a large portion of students in the top 30-40% are not doing huge amounts of prep.
I also do not think the test is primarily a matter of who ever does the most prep wins. Ar the AMC level, the questions rarely cover material that students would not have been exposed to in HS. For example, they donāt ask about calculus or require proofs. Instead itās more about making logical inferences based on existing HS material. Sure, you can improve that to some extent by doing a lot of practice questions, but it doesnāt mean that score is primarily a function of how many hundreds or thousands of hours you prep, or that extreme prep is required to do well.
I agree with most of this part. When I was in HS, the group that did math contests did so primarily out of an interest and talent in math. We enjoyed talking about math and spending time doing math/logic problems outside of the classroom, particularly challenging math/logic questions that were at a higher level than the basic questions from our HS classes, making solving them more interesting and rewarding. There was certainly a competitive aspect toā¦ with trying to get the highest score or feeling good about beating opposing teams/schools, although this does not mean we had to spend huge number of hours prepping to do so (at regional level). All of this group I am aware of have gone on to have some type of successful math or CS related career, including one who is a math professor at a college that was one of the most common sites for area contests.
After a number of debates on chance me posts, I also realize that some CC people do not fully appreciate how high schools play a role in evaluating a students academics. Not everyone goes to an upper middle class suburban public high school. Admissions works one way for those schools, and somewhat differently for others. Academics is most important IMO, but that may not equate to just grades and courses.
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I agree with that. For holistic admissions, the āacademicsā piece itself is also viewed holistically, not just as a set of numbers.
āAcademics is most important IMO, but that may not equate to just grades and courses.ā Can you elaborate a bit?
(As far as high schools and grading, from my perspective with kids at more than one high school, there is zero standardization of grading, or what level of work is an A, etc., across high schools and often among teachers, though differences among teachers may depend somewhat on limits placed by the particular high school.)
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are you saying the reputation of the high school is considered? What about the relationships between the AOs and the GCs? I think our school is highly regarded but I also think our GCs do not do a good job of advocating for students or making time to get to know AOs. I think thatās why we have fewer acceptances at certain colleges than other competitive suburban high schools. Other GCs are better at that part.
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