What if my kid doesn't like math competitions
What if my kid doesn't like math competitions
Math activities for kids who don't like math compeitions
After listening to me lament about how my kids like math and weren’t being challenged enough in school, the person I was speaking to suggested:
“Have you thought of math competitions?”
If your kid doesn’t want to do math competitions, it’s not clear what they could be doing
American schools are generally set up so that if you’re good at math, you're asked to join the math club, which is usually a “math competition” training club.
However, if you don’t want to participate in math competitions, then it’s unclear what else the student should be doing.
For most teachers, parents, students, and school districts (even math specialists), participating in math competitions is mainly what students should do if they like math.
Math competitions are easily legible
In the USA, at the high school level, if a student tells someone they won a Gold Medal at the IMO (International Math Olympiad), another person can quickly classify that kid as having “international-level” math talent.
In the USA, the IMO team size is 6 people each year.
Below that group are the MOP (Mathematical Olympiad Program) qualifiers, which take around 60 people per year (out of which 6 IMO people are selected).
Below that group are the USMO (USA Mathematical Olympiad) and USJMO (USAJMO) qualifiers, combined for around 500 people.
Below that group are the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) qualifiers, which are around 6000-7000 competitors based on the AMC 10 and AMC 12 math test results.
Given that the numbers are relatively stable each year, it can be easy to understand what kind of math competitor a student is and how much math they must have covered.
While your kid’s math teacher may not have heard of some of the above tests, they will have heard of middle school math competitions run through MATHCOUNTS, Math Kangaroo, and similar organizations.
So, if your kid likes math, then math competitions are easy answers and measuring sticks of what they should be doing.
Non-math competitions math activities are non-legible
If a student tells you they went to PROMYS at Boston University rather than the Ross Mathematics Program at Ohio State University, what kind of math student do you picture?
What if they say they did Math Camp (Canada/USA Mathcamp) and then went to HCSSiM (The Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics)? Or MathILy? Or PRIMES? or…. you get the picture.
Math people who went through some of the above camps (or similar experiences) will know and recognize the various activities and be able to give you a good rundown of the options and what type of mathematics they do at these camps.
These activities are legible to math people but not outsiders.
Even “math people” like your kid’s math teacher have likely never heard of the above or met a student who has attended one of these camps (or activities I’ll list below).
Legibility matters for students because…reasons
Various middle/high school Instagram accounts highlight many student-athletes and, occasionally, a high score on a Math Competition test (usually AIME exam results).
They rarely, if ever, highlight “other” math accomplishments unless it’s so overwhelmingly improbable that it does make it through the noise.
For example - “Teenager Solves Stubborn Riddle About Prime Number Look-Alikes”.
Local newspapers tout “athletes of the week” but rarely math-kids of the week.
Regional media then pick up those stories and run the best of them.
So on and so forth.
This matters because of “reasons”.
The ugly truth is that in the US, colleges supposedly look at these media artifacts as students to fill out and send examples of their work in their college applications.
Pointing to newspaper articles, blog posts, TV segments, etc., helps colleges and potential high-caliber high schools see that someone else has vouched for the kid’s talent.
They can take it as a given that the kid is good at what the kid says they are good at.
Is it fair or helpful?
No.
What about math competitions that aren’t the usual “math competition”
Suppose you/your kid wants legibility for their math activities.
One thing you can do is find math competitions that don’t behave like regular math competitions.
If your kid bristles at the time limit of math competitions and doesn’t like being rushed, you can find math competitions that don’t require time limits, like “USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS),” which is a free individual competition where students are given a month to work out their solutions.
If your kid bristles about being judged individually (either perfectionism or doesn’t want to feel like they are bad at math if they don’t win), you can find math competitions that are team-based, like “Math Madness Team Event,” which is an online team-based (minimum of 5-people, no max) competition broken into elementary school, middle school, and high school categories.
If it’s a gender thing (i.e., your kid happens to be the only girl/female-identifying/non-binary student in a predominantly boy math team), you can find math competitions like “Mathematical Olympiad for Girls,” “European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad,” “Math Prize for Girls,” “GAIM - Girls' Adventures in Math,” INTEGIRLS, and more.
If it’s a combination of those things, then there are even more niche competitions that combine some (and other things) of the above to help your kid find their people and the type of math that they want to do, all still within the “Competition Math” umbrella.
Making “non-competition” math activities legible
Even after all of the above, if your math kid still doesn’t want to do math competitions “because,” AND if you still want them to produce legible artifacts that can be pointed to for college admissions, high school admission, general support of your child, or other reasons, here are a few things that you/they can do:
Academic classes at universities
Academic courses at community colleges
Summer math programs (MIT’s list, AoPS’s list, CollegeVine’s list, etc)
“Show your work” on the web
Get people to vouch for you (working with PhD, masters, undergrad students at a local university)
Going through online for-profit math schools like EMF - Elements of Mathematics, AoPS - Art of Problem Solving, Math Academy to show mastery.
Going through online non-profit math schools like CTY - Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics, Adventures with Mr. Math, and others.
Going through online math competition training schools like AlphaStar Academy, or AwesomeMath to show mastery
Going to Math Circles to participate and potentially lead problem-solving sessions.
Take online tutoring through specialized math websites like Athena's Advanced Academy, The Euler Circle, Love of Math, Krista King Math, and more.
While these won’t get you into your local school’s Instagram account, you can highlight this work your kid has done and have it recognized.
Do you want to chat about any of the above for your specific math kid and situation? Hit reply and let me know.
That’s all for today :) For more Kids Who Love Math treats, check out our archives.
Stay Mathy!
All the best,
Sebastian Gutierrez