San Diego Math Circle

ARML Team

The American Regions Math League (ARML) is an annual competition founded in 1976 to bring together the nation's finest students to meet, compete against, and socialize with one another, forming friendships and sharpening their mathematical skills.

The competition takes place on the last weekend in May or the first weekend in June, at four different venues around the country electronically linked into one super-competition. San Diego is in the western region, for which the competition venue is the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Students are selected for the ARML team based in part on scores from prior competitions (SDMLs, SDMO, AMC 10/12 A/B) and in part on coaching judgement. Students must earn their place on the team every year - prior ARML experience does not assure team selection.

Team selection usually follows promptly upon the scoring of the SDMO in late March. It can take a couple of weeks to communicate successfully with all the invitees, so formal practices begin in mid-to-late April. Participation in ARML practice sessions is required.

SDMC sends several teams of 15 students each to the competition. The number of teams sent is based on a survey of San Diego's competitive math students and may vary from year to year; within certain practical constraints, we attempt to accommodate as many San Diego area students as the evidence of competitiveness supports. At least one team is targeted for the more competitive A division, and can be expected to consist of the most competitive grouping of 15 students the coaches can devise. Other teams may compete in either the A or the B division, depending on team history.

The team, coaches, and chaperones travel by charter bus and stay one night in dormitory housing on the UNLV campus. Though SDMC makes a modest contribution to support the ARML team, at present, each student is responsible for the majority of a pro-rata share of costs. We hope to find a corporate sponsor to support the ARML team in the future - we will eagerly pursue any referrals to potential sponsors.

The best preparation for ARML is to develop impressive proficiency in real-time problem solving and to demonstrate that proficiency on the SDMLs, SDMO, and AMC 10/12 A & B.