Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Typical time commitment - math competitors

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.