So I was just looking at the SUMaC questions for this year, and there seemed to be an oddly small number of them as compared to previous years (only 6 as compared to the usual 9-10)?
Why could this be? Is it possible that they had too few applications last year?
Also, what implications does this have on the number of solutions needed? I have solved all, but for 2 of the “find best bound” type questions parts, I am not sure my bounds are the best. how many questions must be solved now to get in, because when there were around 9-10 I have heard you need to solve more than 9.
The entire IMO consists of 6 questions. The AMC 8 has 25. I wouldn’t read too much into the number of questions.
Thank you for answering.
However, (if you wish to) could you please suggest why the number of questions has fallen from previous years? Because it seems as if the difficulty of questions has not risen from last year (the admission exam for which was posted online), when they were 9 questions.
I am aware of the fact that I may appear to be challenging your advice not to read into the number of questions. Yet, that is not my intention. I am merely curious as to why the admission exam for SUMaC is so much easier than in previous years.
Although I’m not exactly sure why they decreased the number, it was definitely not due to a decrease in applicants as this was in the email they sent last year: “We had a record number of applicants this year; over 600 students applied for the 40 spaces in the program.”
It’s possible that they simply thought there was no need for 9 questions and that 6 would be enough to determine acceptance.
Yeah, as others have said, it’s not because of a lower number of applications. Each year a record number of people apply, and a record number of people get rejected.
Maybe they made the admissions test shorter to see people make extensions on the problems. They need to differentiate people in a different way before. If they had a lot of problems, all they’d get is a flurry of surface-level solutions without any room for expanding on the problems. But decreasing the number of problems would allow applicants to analyze the problems on a deeper level and conduct their own research specifically on these problems.
I wonder how many people applied this year…
Rumor has it that around 700 people will be competing for 40 spaces. Best of luck!
Just a reminder: please do not discuss any problem/solutions or else I will be forced to delete the comment given that the SUMaC application is still out.
Why there are so many more people applying to SUMaC than other prestigious math camps? I heard only about two-three hundreds applying to USA/Canada Mathcamp last year.