San Diego Math Circle

Olympiads and Olympians

What is a Math Olympiad? Who are Math Olympians?

The Olympiads

Surely they are competitions at a high level, but Olympiads are more than just harder tests. Often Olympiads are preceded by lower-level qualifying competitions, so that Olympiads admit only a top bracket of a student population and thus are more exclusive, or invitation-only. Qualifying to participate in a Math Olympiad is in most cases an honor in itself.

Besides being "harder" and perhaps "exclusive", the style of challenge and the judging of the results are also different from lower-level competitions. Olympiad problems, besides being hard, generally are intended to provoke deeper analysis and are judged more on the quality of a solution as a whole than just on the answer. In judging the USAMO, for example, often only 1 of 7 points is awarded for the correct "answer" and 6 of 7 points are awarded for the quality of work preceding the answer.

In the "AMC sequence" of MAA-sponsored mathematics competitions in the United States, the Olympiad dividing line falls between the AIME and the USAMO. The AIME has some Olympiad characteristics in being an exclusive exam requiring a qualifying score on the AMC 10 or AMC 12. The AIME also is harder, demands deeper analysis, and is a longer exam, taking several hours vs. the 70 min. of the AMC's. But the USAMO is still more exclusive, harder still, and is the first level in the sequence where the judging of solutions is "Olympiad-styled" in being based on students' full written solutions rather than just the final answers to the problems. The USAMO consumes 9 hours spread over two days.

In being so challenging and so exclusive, few students ever make it to the USAMO; in the entire nation, only about 500 are selected each year. To help students practice for such high challenges and to help more students have Olympiad-styled experience, SDMC holds internal competitions that follow the pattern of Olympiad competitions:

We hold at least two San Diego Math League (SDML) competitions in the course of the regular SDMC season. These exams have middle school and high school divisions with different content, which allows younger students to have an age-adjusted experience and compete among their own peers. These exams are part multiple choice and part short-answer (compute a number or form an expression) in format. Awards are given to a top bracket of scorers in each division, and those receiving awards automatically qualify for the SDMO.

The San Diego math Olympiad (SDMO) admits only the top students in each division in the SDML's. Besides those who have already recognized as SDML top scorers, a few additional students are invited from among the highest scores until a target number is reached. As in other Olympiad-styled contests, students must write full solutions which are then judged over a period of days by an expert jury.

The Olympians

Isn't a bit hyperbolic to use such a lofty term as "Olympian"? I suggest that it is not. About 500 students across the country make it to the USAMO in any given year, while there are approximately 600 athletes on the team that represented the United States at the 2008 Olympic Games. Those who make it to the USAMO, like their athlete counterparts, have toiled for years practicing, honing skills, engaging in competition, challenging themselves to achieve their personal best and then challenging the best of their peers. That theirs is a world of cerebration makes it no less worthy of celebration.

Ok, so who are the Olympians? This is one of those questions that cannot be answered prospectively; future Olympians can come from anywhere and it is part of the purpose of math circles to provide such promising students the kind of support that families and schools alone may find it difficult to provide. However, there are some things that can be learned retrospectively, about Olympians of the past.

We provide here a link to slides from a presentation at the Center for Mathematics Education that provides an interesting summary of largely demographic research on competitive mathematics students and especially Math Olympians.

"Mathematical Olympians: Who are they, where are they from, and how did they get where they are?",

 

Viewing slides can be a bit like watching TV with the sound off - lots of visuals without a story - however this set of slides manages to convey a surprising amount of interesting information even without a connecting narrative.

San Diego Olympians

SDMC's programs and philosophy are not predicated on the USAMO; however, there is an obvious synergy that we exploit to everyone's benefit. The arc of competitions that leads to the USAMO provides motivation and camaraderie that benefits many more students than actually reach that lofty goal. And, some very exceptional students who are sufficiently strong and motivated find support, education, and practice at SDMC that help them achieve their goal of becoming Olympians.

That synergy is remarkably evident in the chart displayed below, which shows the total number of USAMO qualifiers in the greater San Diego area vs. time. There is a clear explosion in USAMO success beginning around the year 2002-2003 ... the year that SDMC was founded.

 

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