Has anyone competed in mathcounts? (X post)

[KarenC]

Did you compete as an individual or on a team? Did you have to do anything special as a homeschooler?

Thanks,
Karen

[Anne/Ankara]

We've had two very successful years at Mathcounts; last year we placed third and this year fifth, in the Pittsburgh chapter competition (among about 30 schools). It was very fun and motivating!

We joined up with a group of homeschoolers, since you need 4 students in grades 6-8 to have a team, but I know you can still compete as an individual mathlete even without a team.

There are plenty of books and problem sets available from the Mathcounts website that you can work through. We had one mother in charge, who brought the kids together every week for two hours to work on the sprint rounds, count-down problems, target rounds-- all that stuff.

Now, if you want even more practice, you can look at the Art of Problem solving website. They run Mathcounts problem solving classes online. We are doing their Number Theory class right now, and it is very well done. By the way, they also run an AMC 10 and AIME class too, I believe.

Good luck! It is a fun program! My ds, eighth grade, will miss participating in it, since now he will be too old. But dd, 6th grade, has two more years, so we're definitely going to continue.

Last point: I have a math professor friend with a very bright math son, but he never encouraged Mathcounts because he felt that kind of quick problems are really "crossword puzzles" of math, just brain teasers and not at all the deep thinking that true mathematics is all about. Hmmmm. I'm sure he has a point. But nevertheless, it is fun to see the kids compete, and to improve your "quick and accurate" math skills, in my opinion!

[KarenC]

But, I'm not sure we could find 3 more 6-8 graders who would be interested in competing. So, she would probably enter as an individual.

Thanks,
Karen