Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Mathematics competitions for individuals.

To fulfil my tigercopter parenting need to live vicariously through my children, I need a steady supply of mathematics competitions. ETA just kidding I found this article which I agree with http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=pc_competitions

Since we are homeschooling, these need to be competitions one can enter as an individual rather than being part of a school, team or club, so that seems to eliminate certain competitions.

So far I've found some. (USA-centric list here. Feel free to list ones from other countries.)

Math Kangaroo
http://www.mathkangaroo.org/mk/default.html
This is for grades 1-12 in the USA (and many other countries), though it seems more popular at elementary school level. The harder questions look appropriately challenging for the grade level, so it looks like a "real" competition.

Mathnasium Trimathlon
http://mathnasiumtrimathlon.com/
This is just for grades 2-5 in the USA.
The questions look very easy for the best students, so I don't know if this is one the really mathy kids go for. (Mathnasium is a tutoring center, catering more to the struggling student, though the competition is open to all.)

American Mathematics Competitions
http://www.maa.org/math-competitions
I understand this is the main competition series, right? (Our oldest, DS7, won't start these for another year or two, and us parents are "aliens" so we don't know much about the AMC competitions yet.) Apparently you have to take it in a B&M school, but we found this link to search for locations.
http://amc-reg.maa.org/amc_external/SchoolSearchByZipCode.aspx

And what about MATHCOUNTS
http://mathcounts.org/
Again, as "foreigners" us parents have no experience with this but would it be correct to say that this is the other main mathematics competition (for grades 6-8).
I have a question. It looks like MATHCOUNTS is very much aimed at schools/teams/clubs. How does participation work for unaffiliated individuals?

What other mathematics competition are there for individuals that we should know about?

Actually I'm (half) joking about the tigercopter parent need living vicariously (okay there's some truth to it), but we actually do want to be selective about what competitions to enter. We don't want something too boring/routine or with numerous regular "competition meetings". Ideally they should be competitions held once a year where kids in the top 0.1% get to see where they are in the top 0.1%.

ETA: I think there are competitions where one submits long written solutions after having some time (a month or so) to contemplate the problems. Anyone know about these, or have suggestions?

For MATHCOUNTS, you register as a homeschool. Here's the MATHCOUNTS Handbook and the required homeschool participation form. Any parents reading this who are interested in signing up their 6-8 grade homeschooled child should note this year's deadline is December 13, 2013.

You can participate unofficially in the Math League as a homeschooler.

Your state or local NCTM may offer competitions open to homeschoolers. Here's the directory to find your state and local affiliates.

Finally, check your state law. Your child may be able to participate on your local public school's math team.

Here are some for younger kids:
Problem of the Week or Month—Submit Your Answer Competitions

Ole Miss Math Challenge Problem of the Week

http://mathcontest.olemiss.edu/index.php

Challenges include Problem of the Week, Algebra in Action, Middle School Madness, and Elementary Brain Teaser. The contest is free, but students must register to submit their answers because they need to create an account to compete. Each Monday new problems are posted; solutions are due Friday by midnight eastern time. Once the submission deadline has passed, you can still submit answers to any past problem and receive a response to your submission, but your name will not be added to the list if your answer is correct. The Challenge Mode provides a list of the most challenging problems for each contest.

The ABACUS International Math Challenge Problem of the Month

http://www.gcschool.org/program/abacus/index.aspx

Eight problems for each of three age groups are posted monthly from September through April. Students should submit their solutions and their reasoning for their solution via e-mail.

The one we are familiar with is http://www.mathleague.com/.

(DD considered doing this but decided against it. I haven't looked at the problems.)

Ah, yes, I'd better bookmark that. Also I searched and found the other one.
http://www.mandelbrot.org/
Thanks!

Does anyone know of others like this, in particular for younger (elem. school) kids?

If it comes to choosing which one(s) to spend time on, then any preferences?

ETA: Oh, I see ohmathmom listed some more of this type. Thanks!

I might have spoken loosely. In practical terms we're homeschooling, but officially it's a virtual public charter school, with no school buildings and with students spread out over the state, so I'm not sure how we're classified. In any case, I found a nearby middle school on this
http://amc-reg.maa.org/amc_external/SchoolSearchByZipCode.aspx
where AMC competitions can be taken by outsiders. I'm not sure what will happen with MATHCOUNTS, but we've got a few years to figure that out, and I have to think that unaffiliated individuals (no team/club, even if in a "school") have a way of competing.

ETA
Thanks, we'll keep this in mind if other options don't work out.

Okay I haven't heard of this one. Any reason to "decide against it".

There actually seem to be a lot of mathematics competitions out there. Generally, how does one choose which ones are most worthwhile (for a very strong math student)?

For the Australians, suffering through their anti-elite, cut down the tall poppies, education, you can find plenty of maths and other competitions here
http://www.amt.edu.au/
where they'll celebrate the tall poppies.

In the UK there are three organisations that run maths competitions:

- the main one, UKMT, which organises both individual and team events, and runs the UK's IMO participation. There are three levels of individual competition - Junior, Intermediate, Senior - and at each level the first round is computer-marked multiple choice, and a follow-on is human-marked writing of proofs. At Senior level the proof-writing follow-on is BMO1; for those who do well at that, there's a line of further proof-writing follow-ons leading up to IMO team selection. Besides that track, the Senior level also has another follow-on, the Senior Kangaroo - computer marked but answers are 3 digit numbers - for the next 3000 or so after the 1000 who go to BMO1 (Bit that should be in the UBT: DS didn't quite make it to BMO1 but did get to the SK and had fun; we await results). All the events they run are timed. Levels have upper but not lower age (well, school year) limits, so young ones can enter all three levels if they like.
http://www.ukmt.org.uk/

- the Mathematical Association, which organises a Primary Maths Challenge in two rounds (timed multiple choice)
http://www.m-a.org.uk/

- the Scottish Mathematical Council, which organises take-home write-proofs style competitions in four levels (Primary, Junior, Middle, Senior) - each child can only enter one.
http://www.scottishmathematicalcouncil.org.uk/

In this context, our answer to "how do you choose which ones to enter" has been "just enter them all" - but that obviously only works because there aren't ridiculously many and entering them is logistically easy for us. It does get a bit "from the sublime to the ridiculous" sitting the UKMT Senior a few days before the Primary Maths Challenge, but he enjoys it and I reckon it's good exam technique practice to do a few of these timed things at various levels of difficulty each year.

This is probably the situation in most countries. However in the US it does seem that there actually are "ridiculously many" math competitons. But this short and insightful (as expected) article "Pros and Cons of Math Competitions by Richard Rusczyk"
www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/articles.php?page=pc_competitions
brought my attention to the fact that there are actually some (a lot?) of math competitons out there that are probably not worth bothering with. When I started searching online I found a really long list of competitions. But apart from the obvious ones of MATHCOUNTS and the AMC series, I can't separate the wheat from the chaff, especially for elementary school kids who are not eligible/ready for MATHCOUNTS/AMC, but also for future possibilities as well.

That's one main reason for this thread. Out of the really long list of possible US math competitons, what are the really worthwhile ones?