<p>If you are interested in looking at the actual problems from this year’s competition, you can find them here:
[The</a> ACM-ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest Web Site sponsored by IBM](<a href=“http://cm.baylor.edu/welcome.icpc]The”>http://cm.baylor.edu/welcome.icpc)</p>
<p>You can judge for yourself whether this is a contest for “code monkeys.” IBM sponsors the competition. They state 24,915 students participated in the competition this year. It has grown quite a lot since 1990. There are regional eliminations, with the top 100 teams advancing to the finals, held in Orlando this year.</p>
<p>I looked up MIT’s team members for 2011. They were Cosmin Gheorghe from Romania, Rostislav Rumenov from Bulgaria, and Cedric Yen-Yu Lin from Canada. Gheorghe won gold medals in the International Olympiad in Informatics (a high school competition) in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Reid Barton won two IOI golds, although one of them was the top gold. Rostislav Rumanov also won 3 golds at IOI. Cedric Yen-Yu Lin had an Honorable Mention in the Putnam competition in 2009, representing the University of British Columbia. Without digging, I can’t tell whether he transferred to MIT as an undergrad, represented UBC while still in high school, or what. He seems to be a physics major or physics grad student.</p>
<p>Oh–and it’s 3-person teams (probably implicit in my list above).</p>
<p>How did you get this? It does not seem to match with this:</p>
<p>2011 AMC 10 A: Number of AIME qualifers 3128</p>
<p>2011 AMC 12 A: Number of AIME qualifers 4768</p>
<p>2011 AMC 10 B: Number of AIME qualifers 2038</p>
<p>2011 AMC 12 B: Number of AIME qualifers 2383</p>
<p>There are some overlap in these numbers, but I think the total is higher than your number.
The new USAMO & USAJMO rules have some affect on the number of AIME qualifiers, but I am not sure it makes much difference.</p>
<p>I added the number of students who took the 2011 AIME I and the 2011 AIME 2, tabulated as N, in the table in Section 1.1 of the Selection Process Report at the link I gave above (in post #78). In Section 1.2, the number of North American participants is stated.</p>
<p>A couple of possible reasons for the discrepancy: some people qualified twice? A large number of AIME qualifiers (numbering in thousands) did not actually take the AIME?</p>
<p>I think you can qualify for the AIME on the AMC12A, AMC12B, AMC10A, or AMC10B. I think students can take 2 of these, if they are eligible and if their school offers it. If so, then students could qualify twice by taking AMC12A + AMC12B, or a combination such as AMC10A + AMC12B (if younger).</p>
<p>Pretty high number but I doubt that international number is higher than north american.
Furthermore international students don’t qualify for USAMO, except Canada. Couple years ago some Asian prep school brought the kids to Los Angeles to take the AIME. The AMC declared that about 50 of these kids qualified for USAMO; but the next day they disqualified them after figuring out their dirty trick.</p>
<p>This link is one year example. I am tired of adding.</p>
<p>The MAA Archives for the AIME have a link to General Statistics for 2009 but not later years. The pdf file I mentioned gives data for 2011. </p>
<p>It looks to me as if the number of AIME participants has dropped substantially, from >10,000 in 2009 to <6500 in 2011 (and <5000 in North America in 2011).</p>
<p>It is conceivable that I am reading the 2001 report incorrectly, since this seems like a really drastic change–but that’s what I think it says.</p>
<p>Perhaps schools have less teachers to register and proctor the tests because of economic reasons? Or the new rules make some kids less motivated to aim for USAMO (don’t want USAJMO)?</p>
<p>coolweather, those are interesting data. The total number of AMC participants seems to have fallen off a bit, and your suggestion about the impact of economic factors might explain it.</p>
<p>Your data don’t seem to give the total number of AIME participants in 2011, though. The pdf file (post #78) is headed 2011 USAMO/USAJMO Indices and Selection, April 11, 2011. However, the first part of the file refers to the AIME. Section 1 is headed “Statistics for 2011 AIME I and 2011 AIME II.” In Section 1.1, Basic Descriptive Statistics, referring to “all students,” the number listed as taking the 2011 AIME I is 3586 and the number taking the AIME II is 2704. Students cannot take both of these exams, so these numbers are additive to give the total number of AIME participants.</p>
<p>In Section 1.2, the statement is made: “The total number of AIME takers in North America is 4574.”</p>
<p>It looks to me as though there was a significant drop-off in the number of AIME participants from 2009, to 2010, to 2011.</p>
<p>It is possible that some North Americans qualified to take the AIME in 2011, but were caught with school closings during the “Snowpocalypse.” Not sure how big an impact that would have had on the numbers, because I don’t have the exact exam dates in mind.</p>
<p>The number of AIME takers could drop because of economic reasons too. Proctoring AMC10/12 only needs 75 minutes from teachers. Proctoring AIME needs 180 minutes from teachers. And teachers need to have commitment to proctor for 2 days if the kids are lucky to advance to USAMO. Some low scored AIME qualifiers may be discouraged to take the tests. Also, some schools may reduce protoring from both AIME I and AIME II to just one. This may makes some kids have less time to prepare or miss the tests because of snow like you said. Also, the new rules about USAMO and USAJMO may contribute to the drop.</p>
<p>Yes, the local HS offered only the A version of the AMC’s and only allowed time for one of the AIME’s, no doubt due to proctoring costs. I agree also that there might be fewer people qualifying through the AMC10 because of rule changes.</p>
<p>Also, some years it’s harder to qualify for the AIME than others, since the rule is (at least it used to be, I’m not sure if it’s changed) that either the top 5% or anyone with a score of at least 100 out of 150 qualifies from the AMC 12. I remember one year, over 20% of the people who took the AMC 12 qualified for the AIME, but other years it will be only 5%.</p>
<p>Hey everyone. I was on the Umich team the last two years.</p>
<p>First let me say that I went to Umich because it was the best school to accept me. Admissions in the states are broken. I had good grades in high school, did well on those silly ACT and SAT exams, did really well on AP tests, and was rated on of the top competitors on TopCoder and yet I still had difficulty getting accepted to schools. Grad schools gives me the same story. Even the top students have to court the Universities to get in which is totally backwards. (Fortunately though, industry has this figured out) Anyway in the age of the Internet your education is not bounded by your institution and instead by your talent and self motivation.</p>
<p>That said I don’t really feel that my team’s performance at the ICPC reflects much on Umich. Sure Umich will probably use it to promote itself and the US (even though, yes, one of our teammates was an IOI gold medalist from Hong Kong). The culture at Umich however is definitely no different from the culture at many other schools. For 2 years I was unable to get a team to finals because I was the only person with real experience. Last year we got a team in yet I ended up solving all 5 of our problems at finals (which is the same number MIT got). This year by some miracle of fortune we got Qifeng as an exchange student (who was experiencing similar problems of apathy at HKUST) and we had a real team. Qifeng and I had a great day in Orlando and we each solved 4 of our 8 problems. Our third teammate was also quite important in developing solutions/tests/finding bugs but being less experienced didn’t code anything.</p>
<p>I definitely am not the only one who had to deal with a school that isn’t interested. Many of the American teams you see at finals our products of one serious competitor. I think America suffers quite a bit from fragmentation and we could easily field medaling teams every year if we put the best people from each team together.</p>
<p>I compete in programming competitions because I genuinely enjoy solving problems and competing. If there was nothing else in it I would still do it. However there are many practical benefits of doing the competitions which tend to be ignored in America. First, (and I saw someone say something to the contrary) if you do well you will <em>never</em> have a problem finding a job. I could have <em>zero</em> (save perhaps a bachelors degree) other qualifications and I’m quite confident I could work nearly anywhere I wanted. Second, you meet other very smart/talented people which are always useful connections to have. Last, it keeps you sharp and helps you keep the gap between theory and practice in check.</p>
<p>-ps. Someone mentioned that Stanford didn’t field a team this year. This is not correct. They just failed to qualify a team to finals.</p>
<p>You’ll find that Mathematics programs are no exceptions to the elitism surrounding grad admissions, in that where you land for undergrad can do wonders for you in terms of your chances, well beyond your actual talent level. It may not depend on research precisely, but that’s mainly because pure math research is hard to conduct in much of a meaningful sense before knowing a lot more.</p>
<p>While math programs might be elitist,i find that it has more variables that i can control:GPA,GRE subject Test scores,Putnam etc.CS programs seem to be wholly dependent on research and the person whom you worked with.On another level,math is something i have been obsessed with for the past 10 years or so.My interest in CS is only three years old.</p>
(This may not apply to all parts of MIT.)</p>