#149 Boosting STEM Student Success Through Math Contests with Vida John Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins 00:50

Are you looking for ways to give your stem team an edge and be confident that they will be competitive for future opportunities? Participating in math contest might be the key to unlocking their full potential and making their college application stand out. With college admissions becoming increasingly competitive, especially in STEM fields, finding ways to help your teens stand out can feel overwhelming. I’m excited to have Vida John join us today to discuss a powerful avenue for academic growth, math contest Bita is a dedicated math contest coach who has helped countless students enhance their problem solving skills well beyond the classroom. With her guidance, students not only excel in mathematics, but they also develop critical thinking abilities that are invaluable in their future careers. In our conversation, we’ll delve into the world of math contests like the American mathematics competitions, AMC, exploring how they benefit both stem and non STEM students alike. So keep listening, even if you have a non stem student, we’ll discuss how these competitions prepare teens for challenging college courses, ways to get involved in these competitions and how participation can strengthen college applications by demonstrating intellectual curiosity and subject mastery with grade inflation rampant, as we discussed in previous episodes, math contests provide an objective measure of your teen’s abilities, they offer a way to ensure your teen is truly excelling and ready for the next level. If you’re eager to find effective strategies to support your teen’s academic journey without adding extra stress, this episode is for you. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity, a flourish, coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:52

Vida, welcome thanks for joining me. Thanks

Vida John 02:56

so much for having me. I’m a big fan of the podcast. I recommend it to all my parents.

Lisa Marker Robbins 03:01

Oh, well, thank you. We love we didn’t have you on just because you’re a fan. You’re talking about a super important topic, but I really appreciate that. You know, as a as a college major and career coach and I’m helping kiddos do the career development work to be self aware and connect that to the world of work, a very common question I get, and I think it relates to the work you do with math contests, is to help kids discern, like, Do I really have the aptitude in certain areas to go after a particular major that looks interesting? Like, I could sit here and say, like, Oh, it sounds interesting to be a doctor. I can assure all of our listeners that Lisa does not have the aptitude. So I love digging into like, really, what is someone’s math aptitude and other aptitudes, and I know we’re going to do a lot with that today. So I’m excited about this topic.

Vida John 03:56

I love those kinds of questions because it gets at really more the long game and ultimately, why are we? Why are we in this rat race? So to speak, it’s it’s not, it’s not about the college, really. It’s about creating a life for yourself, a life where you’re successful and you’re happy and you’re doing good work. And I really like that long range, long game approach, as opposed to what college can I get into? You’re speaking. I

Lisa Marker Robbins 04:25

love language. You know, I always in my listeners get tired of it, probably. But I always say, like, begin with the end in mind. And from my vantage point, having worked with teens, supporting them, working with their parents as well, for over 30 years, that end game. And even for me, when I was paying for my own kids to go to college, for those that went, not all of mine did, but for those that did, that end game was to prepare them for a career and get them credentialed. And you know, I say to teens all the time, hey, you’re going to go to school 16,000 hours from kindergarten through 12th grade. Right? And you said, you said, it best. You said, the rat race. It feels like a rat race. When I say that 16,000 hours, I see their faces go like, Oh, Lisa, I’m feeling every minute of every hour of that right now. And then I quickly tell them, you’re going to work 95,000 hours. So we got to be serious about the as you put it, the long game. I love it. So how to how do math contests relate to that long game? I think we both have our eye on the long game, but we’re doing different things to help facilitate getting there,

Vida John 05:29

right? Well, like a lot of academic contests, I feel that math contests really align well with your success in college. If you’re going to be a nurse, a doctor, or you’re going to be a math major or an engineer, at some point, you have to take, you know, maybe that freshman calculus class. And it’s not just a matter of, you know, eking out a pass. You know, you need to do really well. You need to keep your GPA up. Sometimes the scholarship is involved, and so having a really excellent mathematical preparation is really key to doing well in college, which is, like you said, you know, key to having more choices for your career. You don’t want something like one darn math class to keep you from that nursing degree and maybe not a lot of math contest people are going to become nurses. Maybe they are. But it’s, it’s, it’s nice to sort of be able to arrive at college and be able to hit the ground running. So a lot of this, as opposed to, you know, some other, not necessarily academic, extracurriculars. I’m looking at you sports and nothing, nothing wrong with sports, but they’re not really academic, and they’re not really going to prepare you to get an A in your history class, in the way that you know maybe AP US History might or AP chemistry, or participating in the chemistry Olympiad, or participating in the US history be. A lot of these contests are really more closely aligned, interestingly, with with your academic performance in college, and prepare you for your academics in college more so than some of these other extracurriculars that you know aren’t really academic. Yes, yeah,

Lisa Marker Robbins 07:08

that. So it’s interesting. I’m not going to call out the college that said this to me when I was doing a visit one time, because it was a few years ago and they might have changed their stance, so I’m not going to say who they are, but I was talking to them about really a CT scores as it related to admissions, and this was pre COVID, and we have previous, plenty of pre previous episodes on, do test scores really matter, and what does that look like, and all of that jazz, so people can Go look at those. But the the director of admissions for this particular school said to me, you know, we look very closely at the math, A, C, T, we have found it to be predictive of who is successful at our university. And this is a large public research university that admits students directly into majors. And they said, even if it’s a social work major, it doesn’t matter. So Social Work majors, I am sure you don’t take a lot of math and you’ll take stats, right? You probably have to get some stats in there, but they said math scores are predictive of who was successful at our university. And I found that fascinating and a really important point for students and parents to hear because, you know, there is, they, at least at that one school, they have that data to support it. So it’s fascinating to me,

Vida John 08:32

right, right? And now there’s, there’s so much great inflation, and it’s, it’s really unfortunate a lot of kids are coming out thinking that they’re, they’re ace students, they’re they’re getting A’s without hardly breaking a sweat. And then they, like you said, they come to their to their A, C, T, S, and maybe they get a lower a lower grade score, because that’s really the proof of what you’ve been doing for your four years. And unfortunately, we can’t rely on GPAs as much as we used to, because we feel sorry for those kids who had to go through COVID or whatever it was, but whatever it is, you know, there’s a lot of great inflation, and so we have to rely sometimes on these external measures of our performance. It All. It’s also really helpful, right? For the families and the students to know, like, for the first time, they’re like, oh, maybe I need to remediate in this subject. Maybe I need to learn a little more grammar, guess what, because you’re going to be writing essays in college. And so these external measures can be really, really helpful. Also, they allow you to demonstrate a particular interest, you know, I I’m my expertise is in math, but gosh, for any, any interest that you have, whether it’s, you know, history or chemistry or biology, there’s an Olympiad or a contest or an essay contest for all of those fields. And excelling in that area is a really great way of saying, you know, I’m not just a five on on an AP, US history. I really love US history. Well, it’s. I’m seeking, right? Yeah, seeking out ways to outside

Lisa Marker Robbins 10:03

the classroom. There. I’ve seen colleges on their supplemental college essays ask, what’s a way that you demonstrate intellectual curiosity beyond the classroom? Right? So this would be one a lot of them are saying, Okay, how have you how do you have confidence that this is your major, that you want? So it’s the why this major essay, right? What have you done in the classroom and out of the classroom to make this choice of major be an informed choice, and what are you going to do for with it moving forward? I would guess for some of these contests, they really could almost become a community right there. And I’ll let you answer that, because there’s another common essay, which is, what’s a community that you belong to? And a lot of kids struggle with that, like, where what am I getting out of community beyond the four walls? I mean, that kind of leads into, like, what math contest should students take? And are there some that actually become more than just a one time math contest, but it becomes bigger and more of their life and more about community, right?

Vida John 11:12

That’s, that’s a really good point, because I happen to think math nerds are really great community to have nice people. A lot of them, you know, are going to, they’re going to end up at the top universities. They’re going to end up as people who found companies and become investment bankers and become management consultants. These are smart, smart kids who are going to be, you know, pretty, pretty elite in, in, in our economy. So I just think, you know you can’t, you can’t lose by being friends with the nerds, amen.

Lisa Marker Robbins 11:45

So what are some of the contests that students should begin to take? I mean, are they? How do you find them? What are they? Do you apply for them? Can you get into any of them? Like I am, like, not knowledgeable on this, so I can’t wait to hear this, especially for our students who are thinking about STEM related fields, where math is really going to matter, right?

Vida John 12:08

So for especially for our STEM students, and particularly engineering math, that the quantitative fields math contests are really going to be right up your alley. The grandfather of them all is the American math competitions. These are produced by the Mathematical Association of America. This is an old, old organization that has a lot going on. They support undergraduate math majors, grad students, professors. They publish journals, they host conferences, and also they host this little thing called the AMC. The AMC is actually three exams. It’s available to anybody in the US and even overseas. I have a student that I’m coaching right now in Canada who’s going to take the AMC. The a MC eight is for students in middle school. That’s grade eight and below. There’s the AMC 10 for freshmen and sophomores or below. And then the AMC 12 for juniors and seniors the high school, the two high school exams, AMC 10 and AMC 12. If you score high enough, you get selected to participate in the American Invitational mathematics exam. That’s a very elite group, and we can talk more about that. And then, if you do well, there it keeps on going, ultimately resulting in the selection of six people to represent the United States. Oh, wow, in the International Mathematical Olympiad, that’s really way, way, way far away. We should probably focus on the AMC and the Amy, right?

Lisa Marker Robbins 13:33

Well, you know what I like about this one in particular, and even being a newbie to math contest, this is one that I’m familiar with. What I like about this particular one is it’s open to anybody to give it a try, right? So, you know, no big deal. Nobody’s gonna know if you didn’t pass, not gonna end up on your transcript. Because I got a question from a lot of kids and I, and I kind of teased it up earlier where it’s like, I’m thinking about being an engineer, and I’m getting really good grades in my math class, but I really don’t know if I’ve got the aptitude to be able to keep up. And I’ve even seen kids who are great math students up until they get into calc one, and, you know, B, A, B, and B, C in high school, and then start to struggle. And I’m like, if you’re struggling in BC you’ve got harder calc to do when you’re studying engineering and college, and so this would maybe be a safe way to test the waters on what’s my real math aptitude, besides that, a that I’m getting on in my grades,

Vida John 14:37

right? And I should point out that the caveat is that while anybody is welcome to to sign up and take the exam, the the availability of this exam is a is a real problem. And I’m, I’m a critic of the of the MAA for this, because if you live in a rural area, or just an area where they don’t, they don’t host the AMC. It can be really hard to find a location so So typically, they are offered by high schools and for the MC eight middle schools, sometimes University math circles will host an AMC. After schooling centers will host the AMC. But you know that’s that’s typically in urban areas, not all universities have a math professor who wants to get in with this type of thing, and it’s a lot of overhead and a lot of administrative work. So it’s, it’s a real problem, but you know, there’s, and you know, the schools are the ones who register. So you know, you have to, you have to nudge your school to be able to, you know, to buy the exams and distribute them and proctor the exams. So we have people

Lisa Marker Robbins 15:44

that work in schools that are podcast listeners, because they reach out to me sometimes. So those of you that are school friends, even if you’re not in a role where this would be for you to do, it would be something to bring to attention to those that are the decision makers.

Vida John 16:01

Oh, that’s terrific. I mean, even nowadays, it’s hard to find a seat for the SAT. And I just think, gosh, you know, how are people going to find a spot for the AMC? But yeah, please, if you, if you have the power to do so, to offer the AMC, or if your students are asking for it, please do. Yeah.

Lisa Marker Robbins 16:19

Okay, so beyond the AMC, what? What do we have? What else is out there?

Vida John 16:24

There are other other contests that are that are less prestigious, but I do recommend them. There’s one called math kangaroo. I was just talking to a mom about math kangaroo, and she was like, Isn’t that for for elementary schools students? Because it is, like one of the few contests that’s available for students in first grade, and it’s very oriented towards younger students. Kids get prizes and toys and stickers. It’s kind of, it’s kind of a youth, young, young contest, but, but people don’t understand that. It goes all the way through high school, but you don’t all taking the same exam. There’s, like, you know, different levels of difficulty you can take in high school. And what’s really interesting is, if you do really well on the high school exam, the high school math kangaroo, you can win a free trip to Europe to attend an international math camp in Europe. So, you know, don’t knock math kangaroo. It sounds like it’s young, but there’s a lot of great stuff there. There’s also something called the American regions, math League, again, not quite as as common or as widely available, but it’s more of a math team. So if you like the math team, type of stuff that you did like math counts in middle school. Armal is sort of like math counts for high school. But again, these, these two really pale in comparison to the the AMCs, which are kind of, kind of up there. I mean, so far up there that like schools like MIT and Cal Tech will specifically request your AMC scores. If you’ve taken them. They’re not required, but they do have a blank on their application, like, oh, and you know, if you happen to have taken your AMCs, we’d love to see them. Because, frankly, you know, at a school like MIT or Caltech, those first year classes in physics and calculus, they’re hard. They’re really hard. And it’s not just a matter of, was I able to go through the motions and and eke out A’s on my on my high school math classes, and study really hard and get you know a 700 on my math, on my SAT or something, you have to really understand what’s going on with the math classes and with the math material that you’ve been learning in high school and and the AMC does an excellent, excellent job of distinguishing those top, top students.

Lisa Marker Robbins 18:33

Let me say too. You know, to our listeners, I love that some of these schools that actually are these highly competitive, selective schools are putting a spot where you can record these scores, but you get other places where you can put it in. You’ve got 10 extracurriculars to list. If you’re using the common app, you can there’s plenty of room. And the essays at times, whether it’s related to the why this major essay or what’s your favorite extracurricular, or what’s a community that you belong to. There are spots. There’s the additional information where you could even eke in, like slip in that score, if you had a category on your 10 extracurriculars list that said math competitions,

Vida John 19:20

right, right, absolutely. And if I can, if I can stick in some numbers here for our parents to understand, because I want to, I want to be clear about some things here, the big, major accomplishment that you can make when you’re taking one of the AMCs is to qualify for the American Invitational mathematics exam. So we’re talking about maybe 100,000 students are taking the AMC, and only 7000 students are qualifying for the Amy. So a qualification for the Amy is, is really, really terrific. And it’s sort of a binary, you know, did you qualify for Amy or didn’t? And if you did, you know, that’s, that’s great. It’s a feather in your cap. Again, I said there’s about 7000 students who are Amy qualifiers. And you know, not all of them are. Seniors, so, and some of them are qualifying in middle school. So Yikes. But you know, let’s say there’s 1000 people who qualified for Amy. The point I want to make is not all of those 1000 kids are getting into MIT, right, right? So it’s, it’s really impressive, and it’s something you should be proud of, but it’s, it’s not going to get you in, right? I love that. That makes sense. It does meant it can really enhance your application if you’re an underrepresented minority, if you had significant hardship, it can also really enhance your application to, you know, more of a safety school, or, like a less of a reach school, so like an engineering school that’s more like a Georgia Tech, or you’re in a University of Michigan to

Lisa Marker Robbins 20:42

their honors college, right? I mean, there’s many benefits. I often I have a previous episode, and I would have to we have a previous episode on honors colleges, and I’ll link to it in the show notes, but I have no idea what number it is off the top of my head, but we talk about the benefits of attending a less selective university that getting into the Honors College, and the many benefits of that, and one of them would be, you know, those are schools that are going to be offering more scholarships, so it’s going to help defray costs of attendance. But you get some really other great it varies why, wildly by school. And

Vida John 21:20

there’s, honestly, there’s not much of a difference between the most elite students at land grant universities, your state schools, and the students who got into Harvard. You know, it could have just been an application reader who had a bad day and read your application. So a lot of those people who almost made it in don’t want to go to another expensive college if it’s not going to be a Harvard, and probably rightly so. And so they end up at their state school, and then they’re the elite students at their state school. And so now you’re landing at, you know, a land grant university, competing against those kids, the kids who didn’t get into Harvard but almost did, right exactly now, and it’s just, you know, the end of the competition, it just never ends, right, right, right? So, and really, that’s about being academically prepared. I don’t mean to call it, you know, to make it seem like a rat race, but it’s really about, you know, why are you in college? Right? You’re there to study and to and to succeed in your classes. I mean, there’s a lot going on in college, but let’s not forget the real reason that were there, and you want to be able to succeed when you get there and and so a lot of this academic preparation is to is really to it just it’s, I like it a lot because it does double duty. It helps them demonstrate their skills while they’re in high school and get into the colleges that they want to get into. But then further, it helps them succeed once they get there, because being able to solve these harder problems. And I should, I should point out that math, when I say a math contest, I don’t mean you’re doing three digit multiplication and you’re trying to do it as fast as you possibly can. These are hard problems. Each problem is different from the other. So like, your first problem might be a pre algebra. Second problem might be probability. Third problem might be geometry, and they’re all non routine, so they’re problems that you’re not going to have seen before. So you know, you’re really being put through the ringer. As I like to say, it’s the difference between, say, doing soccer drills for your soccer team, where you’re practicing, I don’t know a lot about soccer, but you’re practicing kicking with your left foot. You’re practicing kicking with your right foot. You’re practicing short kicks and long kicks and whatever, and doing that over and over and over again to develop that muscle memory, which is the equivalent of a school math curriculum, very important, something that we all need to do. But you know, the whole point of that is to solve problems right and math classes to solve problems that people haven’t seen before, that are hard to solve, and that’s what math contests provide. And the equivalent in soccer is like playing a game, right, right, playing, we’re playing a soccer game. You don’t know if the ball is coming from the left, coming from the right, high, low. That’s what a math contest is like. It’s it’s also fun. Yeah,

Lisa Marker Robbins 23:54

I had a student years ago. She, well, it’s some for the it’s fun for those kids. It would not be fun for me, because I’m a people person and I’m a coach, right? But yeah, for those of you that you’re wired for that, I had a student years ago who she was applying to Harvard and Berkeley. She got into these schools, cost was a factor, so that ended up actually taking her to a research university, state school, and she ran out of math her sophomore year of high school. Her school went up through multi variable calculus. And I like that you mentioned there’s not that was going to be one of my questions. There’s not an A these are not age specific. You’re not competing against all seniors. I mean, there are some wildly math gifted kids out in the world who they run out of math in ninth and 10th grade, and so these are fantastic. She always took advantage of like summer programs at Stanford and Harvard and Michigan in mathematics. She took. Advantage of these contests, because she was able to keep her math going, even having run out of math to take while she was in high school, so she could continue to demonstrate her interest there, right,

Vida John 25:12

right? And it’s also important, you know, acceleration is is nice, but if you’re accelerating at the expense of going deep and solving harder problems, if you’re just seeing sort of the most routine problems, and you’re speeding through those and then going on to the next subject, you know, algebra and geometry, and going through them really fast. But you’re not seeing the harder problems. You’re not neces you’re kind of doing yourself a disservice in terms of your academic preparation. I’m not saying that acceleration is bad. Lots of really smart kids are accelerated, but also make sure that they’re that they’re really studying like when they learn algebra, they really learn algebra. I

Lisa Marker Robbins 25:50

think that acceleration thing, it can happen so many times back in sixth grade, seventh grade, and at first it can feel like a huge compliment and an achievement. And so the student and the parents often just say yes, but they’re as you know, and then in hindsight, sometimes they go, Oh, maybe we shouldn’t have said this. So I have a question for you. The kiddos who are going to be attracted to math contests are going to have an aptitude for math. They’re probably performing well. They are performing well in their high school math classes, or their middle school math classes, they might be considering a field that has a mathematics base to it that’s going to be important so they’re already good at math. Do you study for or prepare for these contests. Mean, you know, for test prep and and, by the way, we did have we talked about test prep recently, or not just test prep, but testing and along with grade inflation on Episode 142, so I just wanted to, I’ll put it in the show notes, but it relates very closely to what you’re saying about why these math contests are important because David blob on took us back into like, what’s going on with great inflation, what’s going on with test scores? And so it said, I

Vida John 27:09

learned that episode. It was,

Lisa Marker Robbins 27:12

it’s actually really good. It

Vida John 27:13

was a really good episode. If I missed it, it is really good. They

Lisa Marker Robbins 27:16

need to go back. It’s, I think it’s the second most popular episode so far for 2024 I just looked at the stats, and it just came out. Now I one of my solo episodes is the first, more most popular. So I think David’s going to unseat me by the end of the year. That’s okay. He can have that spot. He’s generous. He’s a great guy. But yeah, that’s at flourish, coaching, co.com, forward, slash, 142, and we’ll put it in the show notes, because it helps create an understanding of these other important pieces that relate to why you’re such a strong advocate here. So how do we how do we prepare? Do we prepare? Do we not? Do we just dive right in?

Vida John 27:59

Right? It’s always, always better to prepare. I should, I should say, though, that if you have a student, particularly if they’re younger, and they’re used to getting 95% 98% 100% on their on their test papers, just, just give them a little heads up that if you to qualify for the Amy, for example, which is the first really big accomplishment, you only need to correctly answer 14 problems out of 25 so that’s like, what a D, yeah. So first of all, you know, adjust what you’re what you know, what you need to get what you think of as a good score. So you know, getting half of them right? Great. You’re only able to answer the first 10 problems. That’s outstanding, right? Manage expectations, right? And then I tend not to overthink preparation. These exams are widely available on the internet, at a website called The Art of Problem Solving, you can find old exams going back to 2000 which is probably the modern era for AMCs, that are comparable to what you’ll take today. Take those exams at home under time testing conditions, no calculators, set a timer, stop pencils down when your time’s up, score your exam, and then go over the problems that you couldn’t solve. Spend as much times you like, you know, maybe you ran out of time, and spend as much time as you like trying to solve the problems that figure out the problems you couldn’t solve. There are solutions widely available on the internet at The Art of Problem Solving. People post solutions on YouTube. So there, you can do this for very low cost. It just all it requires is your own elbow grease and your own time and effort to do well and

Lisa Marker Robbins 29:37

but you also and now I’m curious you prep students for these as well. So I know most of our listeners probably will do a DIY. Those are fantastic resources that you gave for helping them. If somebody is working with you, like, what do you do to how are you helping prep students for tests? I’m curious because I understand like a test prep tutor, that makes sense to. Me, and I never even thought about math contest prep and using someone to help with that, right?

Vida John 30:07

So I pretty much do what I’ve just described. I assign an old exam for them to do as homework. They take it at home and are timed exam conditions, and then we report back to meet to discuss the problems that they couldn’t solve. What I bring to the table is time saving, basically, and a big picture. So I have taken all the AMCs, going back to 2000 they’re offered actually, twice a year. So it’s like, you know, 40 exams, and I’ve detailed notes written to myself about each problem. And so I have a big picture understanding of how the exams are. So if we come across a formula, and I’ve been seeing it a lot, I can tell that to this to the students, you know, this is something you really need to know. You may not see it on every exam, but probably every other exam you’re going to see this formula that needs to be, that needs to be known. And some of them are more like dead end problems. They it’s like, what, you know, yeah, I’ve not seen anything like it before, and it’s like, you know, well, let’s not worry about this one so much, because it’s just not going to be helpful. So I just, I basically, I’m their time saver. It’s also just more fun to study with someone absolutely to laugh at ourselves. But there, there are other ways to prepare there, you know, of course, there are in person after schooling centers. There’s Russian school of math, but in particular, I want to call out a company called The Art of Problem Solving, abbreviated AOPs, or sometimes a ops. They offer online math classes. They have in person academies, Zoom classes. They also publish textbooks. And what’s really interesting about their math curriculum is their problem sets and their homework are lifted straight out of math contest problems. So you’ll look in the textbook, you’ll learn the quadratic equation, and you’ll get a few in the homework, a few routine quadratic equation problems, and then you’ll see something from an AMC eight or from a math counts, a middle school math contest, and it’s, and they’re, and these are, these are challenging problems. They’re not routine. They’re not like, you know, solve, you know, solve for x using the quadratic equation. It’s like, how would you use the quadratic equation to solve this particular problem? And it’s like, you have to really understand it. It’s not it’s no longer about muscle memory. It’s about being on the soccer field and approaching your opponent and not knowing whether they’re going to kick the ball left or right, and then having to draw on all the drills that you did to be able to get past them. It’s, that’s what I really love about, about math contests, as well as it’s just, it’s just a little more real world. Yeah, in the way that a soccer game is more it’s like what you’ve been preparing for all your life, right? Well, drills, it wouldn’t be fun, exactly. It

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:38

drives home. Why a school like MIT would even have a place for you to put your scores down. So I love this. We’re going to put that Art of Problem Solving link on on our show notes. Because, as you were saying that, I know you’re passionate about math contests and you’re passionate about math, but I’m thinking like even those kids who maybe don’t have the time to go do the contest, or they aren’t in an area where it’s offered, that website sounds like a great resource to continue to level up their math skills, regardless. So

Vida John 33:13

right? If you’re if you’re feeling like your kid just raced through algebra and you’re considering acceleration, get a copy of the AOPs algebra textbook and have them go through the end of chapter, review and challenge problems and see if they really understand algebra. If they’re able to take to solve most of those, then, yeah, they’re probably good to go on to geometry. If not, it might be worth spending the summer solving some really hard algebra problems, because that’s going to seal the deal. I love the other thing I really like about math contests, because they’re multi specialty. I guess they like I said, you know, one problem is probability. One problem is geometry. You’re not really allowed to forget anything that you’ve learned in your classes. So, you know, typically you take maybe geometry your freshman year, and then you’re moving on and you don’t see geometry again, or at least on a very limited basis. Limited basis, you know, until it’s time to take the SAT Well, the math contest. Kids have been solving geometry problems through all their years of high school, but the time they get to SAT, the SAT math is not something that they’re going to be having to prepare for in most cases, yeah, because they’ve been, you know, they haven’t forgotten all those formulas.

Lisa Marker Robbins 34:19

I’ll use my own 26 year old as an example, as we wrap it up here. But he when he was in high school, each time that he took the A, C, T, he missed one math question, and we did the Question and Answer service or the test information release service to get his questions and the answers. And both times, it was something that he learned in junior high, and he was not doing math contests so well. This has been fantastic. I mean, what I love about it is it’s really not just about math contests. This is about anybody that’s headed towards a STEM field that’s going to rely heavily on math. There’s something for everyone. And I just I thank you for making the. Time.

Vida John 35:01

Oh, I hope, I hope your students, if you have, if they have any questions, they can come to me at vita John tutoring. I’m always delighted to talk about math contests and the Art of Problem Solving.

Lisa Marker Robbins 35:10

Okay, Vida John tutoring, and we will put it in the show notes with a link as well. Thank you, Vida, thanks. It’s been

Vida John 35:17

really great to be here. You.

Lisa Marker Robbins 35:24

I hope this conversation with Vida John has illuminated the benefits of math contest and how they can play a pivotal role in your teens academic and career journey. Participating in these competitions not only enhances problem solving skills, but also prepares students for the challenges of college level courses and beyond to help your teen get started, I encourage you to check out the free resources available on the Art of Problem solving.com website, they offer a wealth of practice problems past contest questions and learning materials that can ignite your teen’s passion for mathematics and critical thinking, These resources can also serve as a check on their math skills, helping you confirm that they have the proficiency you believe they have. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might benefit. Also sharing following the podcast, rating and reviewing helps us support more families navigating the college admissions process. Thank you for listening to College and Career Clarity, where I help your family move from overwhelmed and confused to motivated, clear and confident about your teen’s future. You.