At a recent math tournament, the coach/coordinator for our teams expressed surprise at the small amount of time that DS spends on math. Since she has taught/coached/coordinated classes/teams involving a large number of the top contenders in our state, I expect that her perspective is fairly reliable. Anyhow, it got me to thinking about whether to actively encourage DS to increase his time commitment to math moving forward if he is to become more serious/active in competing. DS is a 6th grader but has competed individually and as part of a team at both the middle school and high school levels in various regional and national competitions. I think that as he enjoys doing well, he may be amenable to increasing his time commitment moving forward. This wouldn't necessarily all be competition prep, but may include classes, practices, etc.


Based on your own kids or other kids you know, what are some typical time commitments for middle and/or high school students who are serious contenders at math competitions?

Since I've started coaching a math club (5th grade) and attending competitions this year I wonder the same thing especially about the AMC/AIME/USAMO pathway. I don't know anyone personally but I do remember some previous research turned up ranges like a 1000 hours of study to make it all the way.

On the WTM boards, a poster has a young high school level DS who is on track to be on the IMO squad for NZ. I think he spends 3-4 hrs a day on math. This is less extreme than it appears, since as a homeschooler his regular math is done through AoPS books and classes. So that is similar to the 1hr/day class time and 1hr/day homework time for a typical public school kid. Net of that, it leaves ~2hrs per day for more math... either other classes and subjects or explicit contest prep.

The WTM accelerated board has a couple of folks who have kids who have made it to the AMO/Mo(S)P level...

I think the total commitment is going to depend on how useful your school math classes are.

It depends on the level of competition, the child's potential, and how far the child wants to go. A very smart kid might make it to the Mathcounts national competition with very little effort or study outside of school, but they aren't going to win nationals. Same thing with doing well on the AMC tests vs making the Math Olympiad Summer Program.

(Hi, delurking as my input may actually be useful here ;-) DS11 is doing reasonably well in competitions (for the latest, we await results; he probably won't quite make top 100 in the UK in a competition aimed at children 3 years older). He is lucky enough to be gainfully occupied in school maths lessons, though a fair bit of that is more about presentation than content, and probably spends an average of an hour a week working on maths problems at home, plus odd bits of time randomly thinking about stuff. Not much, in other words. This isn't much of a limiting factor now, but it will be soon; he'll have to decide whether it's worth it to him to spend more time. Here at least, and I think also in the US, you get to the actual selection process that leads towards IMO participation before you have to know more stuff, rather than just know it more deeply, than others your (assumed) age. So I wouldn't present it to him as that he must, but rather as that he could, and if he did, he might do better.

Hey - glad to see another post from you Colinsmum!

10 hours a week is a good amount of time if you are taking previous test (MathCounts or AMC) and going over the solutions. I know the kids around here that make nationals in MathCounts are doing at least 2 full test on their own each week during the season.

The test get harder as you move up so to prepare for State you practice previous state test or maybe even previous national test.

What are the competitions your son has been doing? He has time plenty of time on his side.

Of course this depends upon the definition of a "very smart kid", but I don't think even a PG kid is guaranteed to get to MathCounts nationals unless you live in a non-competitive state. The tests have gotten dramatically harder over the years. For example DS can ace the AMC-10s or MathCounts nationals tests prior to 2010 and finds the AMC-10 tests before 2000 almost trivial. But his score on the recent AMC-10s is considerably lower.

Well, I didn't say guaranteed. I said might. And, of course, getting to nationals is a different story in a high population state with lots of high paying jobs and universities versus, say, Wyoming. Which I thought I covered with the first part of my first sentence about it depending on the level of competition.

I find your son's experience with the various years' test difficulties to be interesting. I don't have any real experience with the more recent years' tests. I would guess that a combination of the Flynn effect, the late 90s H-1B boom, and the founding of The Art of Problem Solving have all contributed to a significant increase in the competitiveness of math competitions in the US over that timeframe, necessitating a corresponding rise in test difficulty.

DS12 was one of what I think is about 50 6th graders in the US to qualify this year to take the AIME (did not do well on the AIME). He probably spends 10+ hours most weeks on math in addition to his Algebra II class he takes at school, so maybe around 15 hours in total per week.

He did much better on the AMC test than he did at MathCounts. AoPS is wonderful.

That is actually reasonable. Assuming that you start competing in 6th grade, 1000 hours translate to an average 3.2 hours per week over 6 years.

One of my points to the coach was that DS is already doing math in school so I have not been inclined to push more math time on top of that except for maybe immediately prior to a competition. I have to say that 4 hours per day of math sounds like an awful lot to me. At our public middle school (should be similar in high school as well), DS spends 4 hours per week in math class plus about 1 hour per week on math homework so 5 hours per week total.

Wow, 10 hours a week seems high for training for competitions prior to high school!

That's my understanding as well regarding the various levels from AMC to AIME to MOSP to IMO.

Your input is always useful! DS is probably averaging about an hour a week although he is not at a top 100 level nationally for early high school. I would think that around top 100 nationally at the early high school level probably approaches that turning point as RE commitment for many kids. It does appear that in the U.S. as well, you don't need to know more stuff until probably MOSP. I definitely agree that it shouldn't be presented as a "must" but as a logical option if he wants to improve.

There's definitely plenty of time to decide whether and/or when to ramp up his commitment. Partly I wanted to make sure that he thinks things through and have realistic expectations as re options moving forward. Aside from the AMCs (8 and 10) and Math Olympiads, DS has done several tournaments, including Math 24 Integers and our regional equivalent of Stanford Math Tournament (we are not in CA).

I have heard that part of the problem with Mathcounts is that the ceiling is too low so that especially in a competitive state, the top 4 may not necessarily be stronger mathematically than the next 8. It also sometimes comes down to who can slam that buzzer a fraction of a second faster.

Congratulations on qualifying for AIME. It does appear that 6th graders (plus the included 5th graders) generally don't do that well on the AIME. I wonder if it is partly a preparation issue.

Many states, perhaps even most, do not use the Countdown round to determine who qualifies for nationals in MathCounts.