Rebecca Posted June 11, 2022 Share Posted June 11, 2022 I have a rising 9th grader (child number 6 of 9) who participated on a homeschool MathCounts team this past season (2021-22). He did well, joining the team late when they needed another team member, and placed into the State Math competition. He just finished honors geometry and his interest in math has really taken a deep dive forward. He has expressed interest in preparing for the AMC math competitions and is currently enrolled in AOPS Intro to Number theory and doing very well. He will take a rigorous honors level Algebra 2 for 9th grade and has planned out AOPS coursework to include Olympiad Geometry. We talked about starting a "Mathlete" Club or team but really have no idea how or what to do. He is also interested in the HMMT math competitions. Has anyone done this and could offer suggestions or advice? He is willing and able to spearhead this but just thought I would ask the Hive as this is completely new terrain for me. Note: I do not have the math mind and could not be the coach as far as a coach who can work solutions, etc. to the problems and help students understand the math. I can certainly support and provide adult supervision and so forth-- but I really am out of my league with math. I use expert tutors for high school math after much experience (as of this year, I have four students who have graduated my homeschool). Thank you for your help! -Rebecca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Porridge Posted June 12, 2022 Share Posted June 12, 2022 @daijobu coaches math counts teams and is well versed with competition style and AOPS style math. She may have some helpful insight for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted June 12, 2022 Share Posted June 12, 2022 (edited) 20 hours ago, Rebecca said: We talked about starting a "Mathlete" Club or team but really have no idea how or what to do. He is also interested in the HMMT math competitions. Has anyone done this and could offer suggestions or advice? He is willing and able to spearhead this but just thought I would ask the Hive as this is completely new terrain for me. Thank you for the tag, @WTM. In grade 9 a student should be preparing to take the AMC 10. You'll get the highest ROI if your student prepares independently working through as many old exams as possible and most importantly studying the solutions to the problems he couldn't solve. (Full disclosure: this is exactly how I prepare my students.) If he can earn an AIME qualification during high school, that will be a nice feather in his cap for college applications, and most importantly, making him well prepared for college level STEM work once he arrives at college. But leading a group is also fun and promotes leadership and camaderie. Your student can lead group meetups to discuss problems. Or he might consider coaching his own homeschooled MathCounts team if that's an interest. If your student enjoyed the team aspect of MathCounts, you might see if there is an ARML team in your area. It's basically MathCounts for high school. I'm in the Bay Area and our local competition is in VEGAS! (Actually the students stay at UNLV, not the Strip, lol.) If you don't have an ARML team locally, you can look into starting your own. (Check with the ARML people for advice.) HMMT is also a great option; CalTech/Harvey Mudd have a similar contest on the West Coast. I always enjoy discussing math contests! I'll tag @Not_a_Number in case she wants to add anything. (She's much more accomplished than I am.) ETA: How to form an ARML team. Edited June 12, 2022 by daijobu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lilaclady Posted June 12, 2022 Share Posted June 12, 2022 Yes I agree with daijobu. I don’t know how popular homeschooling is in your area but one big issue we had was getting people to join the team. We couldn’t get as many homeschoolers who were well prepared and interested in math. Some thought the team will be teaching their students the math and some others just were not mathematically strong enough. We had a good team that participated in a lot of competitions during the school year and did place but the AMC competitions were more individual based. The team also took part in HMMT one year but your son can also do it as an individual if he is not able to get a big enough team. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daijobu Posted June 12, 2022 Share Posted June 12, 2022 (edited) I just remembered that MathCounts now has scholarships that are only available to MathCounts alumni. (My dd was a finalist for one award.) They also have a new scholarship for MathCounts alumni who start MathCounts programs at underserved schools. Edited June 12, 2022 by daijobu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Posted June 12, 2022 Author Share Posted June 12, 2022 Thank you so much! Sharing all of this with my son and researching. He has a practice plan in place using the AMC (old) exams, just as you stated @daijobu. Thank you for all the links. One of our concerns was finding interested students/strong math candidates, so keeping everything in mind. -Rebecca Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoCal_Bear Posted June 13, 2022 Share Posted June 13, 2022 We are fortunate enough to live near a math circle and have been able to access AMC that way...but out of luck on the Math Counts front as a homeschooler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted June 15, 2022 Share Posted June 15, 2022 (edited) I'm not sure how much my ds's experience would be helpful, but my ds represented NZ at the IMO for 3 years in a row. He created and ran an olympiad math club at the local school in his senior year, and mentored two students to the IMO over the period of 3 years (he continued to mentor them online in his 1st 2 years at MIT). Happy to answer questions if you think his experience could be helpful for you. Ruth in NZ Edited June 15, 2022 by lewelma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rebecca Posted June 15, 2022 Author Share Posted June 15, 2022 Ruth, Thank you for your post! This would by my son's dream: he is definitely interested in elite mathematics and IMO and began creating a study plan for himself to get ready. He is thinking about creating an Olympiad Math Club-- He would love your son's experience, even though we know it is international! Local schools are inaccessible to us as homeschoolers. We are not permitted to participate in any of the public school activities. I do not know if the private school or charter schools would be open to homeschoolers- and we don't know how to find the population who would be interested in this level of elite mathematics. Thank you so much! -Rebecca 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lewelma Posted June 16, 2022 Share Posted June 16, 2022 (edited) My ds just kind of fell into olympiad math. We had such trouble finding a mentor or other kids, so he decided to apply to the national olympiad math camp in the summer after his 7th grade year. He had to do the equivalent of USAMTS exam -- a take home, proof based, really hard exam. He worked for like 100 hours on it, and got 9 of the 12 problems. His work paid off, and he was the only 8th grader to get in that year. That December (he was 13), they asked him to take the BMO - British Math Olympiad. Not the junior one, but the actual BMO. He was terrified because he was a hard slow worker, and not a speed kid. And he scored a 1 out of 60 I believe. But then the next year, he applied to the camp again, got in, and then did well enough on the BMO and the squad selection exam, to get into the squad, which meant that he took the BMO1, BMO2, AMO, and the APMO. The next year, same thing, but this time he made the team. In the end he took 20 international math olympiad exams. But what was interesting, is that it was never about the competition for him. He just used the olympiads as a way to find a sense of community - there were 2 other kids in our city who were at this level, so they met weekly and created plans and studied together. His senior year, he simply approached the local school and offered to teach an after school class. This is a public school, but an excellent one, and the administration was quite pleased with the offer given my ds had been to the IMO twice by then. They teachers created a list of students to invite and my ds roped in one of the other olympiad students to help him teach it. They met weekly, and created lectures and then problem sets. Their goal was to create a collaborative environment to celebrate math. And he and his friend worked hard to help their kids get into the camp that year. I think 3 got in (so 5 from our city out of 30 spots). So for him it was a huge part of his high school experience, but it was very hard to make happen until he got into the camp and met like minded kids that he could correspond with or see locally. Edited June 16, 2022 by lewelma 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malam Posted June 18, 2022 Share Posted June 18, 2022 (edited) On 6/11/2022 at 6:58 PM, Rebecca said: I have a rising 9th grader (child number 6 of 9) who participated on a homeschool MathCounts team this past season (2021-22). He did well, joining the team late when they needed another team member, and placed into the State Math competition. He just finished honors geometry and his interest in math has really taken a deep dive forward. He has expressed interest in preparing for the AMC math competitions and is currently enrolled in AOPS Intro to Number theory and doing very well. He will take a rigorous honors level Algebra 2 for 9th grade and has planned out AOPS coursework to include Olympiad Geometry. We talked about starting a "Mathlete" Club or team but really have no idea how or what to do. He is also interested in the HMMT math competitions. Has anyone done this and could offer suggestions or advice? He is willing and able to spearhead this but just thought I would ask the Hive as this is completely new terrain for me. Note: I do not have the math mind and could not be the coach as far as a coach who can work solutions, etc. to the problems and help students understand the math. I can certainly support and provide adult supervision and so forth-- but I really am out of my league with math. I use expert tutors for high school math after much experience (as of this year, I have four students who have graduated my homeschool). Thank you for your help! -Rebecca https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/AMC_10#Recommended_reading https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/How_should_I_prepare%3F#AMC_10: He should use these booklists to create his plan. notice how intermediate algebra is the only intermediate level book that is recommended. For courses: https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/course/maa-amc10 https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/course/maa-amc10-special https://artofproblemsolving.com/school/course/maa-amc10-special-b https://cty.jhu.edu/programs/online/courses/high-school-competitive-mathematics-prep-cpm https://daily.poshenloh.com/courses/Test-Pack Other programs: Best: AwesomeMath, PROMYS/Ross, Canada/USA Mathcamp, Mathily Also see alphastar, SuMAC (probably not worth the price), ProveIt! Edited June 18, 2022 by Malam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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