<p>texaspg–I do think that the Art of Problem solving is helping to broaden access substantially. Their courses and books are within the means of many middle-class families, who could not afford private school tuition. Even AoPS is not the solution to access for the lowest quintile economically, though. Maybe the Gates Foundation or a similar group could support purchases of materials by schools in low-income areas.</p>
<p>Well, actually, they don’t make the case for auto-admits, 3togo–although the students who were shown are in a really rarified group of USAMO winners, who probably are essentially auto-admitted as things stand (after the character screen).</p>
<p>I would be interested to know whether the students who score some points on the USAMO come from similarly economically privileged backgrounds as most of the U.S. team appeared to do (one California student perhaps being a counter-example).</p>
<p>“Their courses and books are within the means of many middle-class families, who could not afford private school tuition.”</p>
<p>I dont know how to check on the home schooled kids. However, all others who are winning seem to be at either private or science magnet schools. So within the means is not exactly true for the winners. </p>
<p>If I don’t see a podunk school kid on that list, I don’t believe it is a possibility. With no groups or students to work with, it makes the process of practice out of reach.</p>
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<p>With all due respect, QM, thinking that they should have shown actual problems for the viewers to understand how difficult the problems are is MISSING THE ENTIRE POINT OF THOSE FILMS, especially the British one, which was intended to provide insight into a unique world populated by unusual personalities, not provide a problem-set for the audience to try to solve and come up short. </p>
<p>This is what we mean by your blunt, literal approach to things. </p>
<p>“A Beautiful Mind” or “Good Will Hunting” didn’t need to show the exact problems being discussed to provide insight into the human heart and into the lives or John Nash and (fictional) young math prodigies in Cambridge.</p>
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<p>If I were the Gates Foundation or had other money to burn to support math education in low-income areas, it would seem to be the better thing to do to use that money to improve general math access for the majority of students, not worry about rewarding a teeny-tiny handful in their pursuit of an arbitrary prize that bears little relationship to anything real world.</p>
<p>I’m not sure increasing access to a set of tests is a priority, at all. And claiming some of the winners may go on to greatness is a bit of “let them eat cake” for the rest. </p>
<p>Realize how many times it’s been said on this thread that kids who don’t get high level math opportunities can just find them themselves?</p>
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There are probably a few male mathematicians who consider the solution to that prisoner’s dilemma bar problem in “A Beautiful Mind” to be important. :)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, it’s not the prize at all that I am valuing–it is the developed abilities. I think that working on difficult problems, at the right level of difficult to be challenging, but solvable, develops the ability to solve more difficult problems. I also think that we need people who can solve quite difficult problems in all areas, but including math. It does not seem to me that the problems themselves bear “little relationship to anything in the real world.”</p>
<p>texaspg, do you mean the students who qualify for the USAMO, or the students who are named as winners? I think that Melanie Wood, to take one example of an US IMO team member, came from a middle-class background in Indiana.</p>
<p>If you don’t pursue high math competition, does it mean one’s math brilliance is diminished? At times, I think some here are selling the tests like some opportunity one cannot afford to miss. And that society can’t afford undervaluing.</p>
<p>Hmm, re Pizzagirl’s post #2524, I feel that the British film provides a great deal of insight into the views of the film-maker about mathematically talented students, but much less into the views (or hearts and lives) of the putative subjects of the film.</p>
<p>Re lookingforward’s post #2529–no, I don’t think that one’s brilliance is diminished by not pursuing high-level math competitions. However, I emphatically think that one’s problem-solving skills are enhanced by working on tough problems, whether in a competitive context or outside of it.</p>
<p>The Brit film had a slanted perspective, ok? It is what it is and I, for one, hope we won’t postmortem it ad infinitum.</p>
<p>Q, you are so focused on one sort of intelligence, one type of brilliance and one way of challenging that. And then that those kids who pursue that direction are, for us and the world, special snowflakes. I wish you could.put this in a broader perspective.</p>
<p>QM - I am thinking of anyone who is associated with USAMO in general. I don’t think it has to to with rich or poor as much as an interest group, formation of such a group, competing and spending time together etc.</p>
<p>Science magnets don’t discriminate based on income but they are discriminatory based on access. Having a group of kids participating working and solving problems is what provides someone with an incentive. Some high schools have Math clubs but not the right coaches while others may not even have a club while a kid is interested. </p>
<p>If you find a kid who has succeeded, it is not always because the kid had overcome the odds but excelled in an environment that fostered such a kid by providing a lot of baseline support. If this Indiana girl you refer to has come up all by herself with no support group of any kind, any school would definitely admit her based on that fact. Colleges are actually looking for such kids who have overcome all odds in their achievements.</p>
<p>The principle I see most top colleges practicing - if you can do 2X in an environment which predicts X out of you, then we believe that in our environment you will be able to do 5X. If you do only 0.5x today when we think you can do X, then our resources are wasted on you.</p>
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<p>The extent of one’s math brilliance is less likely to be known in such cases. Math competitions help to identify the mathematical talent that can make new discoveries in math. The SAT, SAT subject, and AP exams test the ability to apply mathematics to engineering and other subjects, but the questions are qualitatively less difficult.</p>
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<p>Right, but it seems as if you care only, or most, about the uber-geniuses getting to solve USAMO-level problems, and not about the vast majority of underserved students who should have the opportunity to solve “normal-level” math problems so they can be math-literate or math-proficient on an everyday basis. </p>
<p>Put simply, if you’re got a group of 2,000 underserved students who are functioning at 1+1=2 since that’s all their surroundings / school systems give them, it seems like you care only that the 1 or 2 who could be USAMO-worthy get to solve USAMO-like problems. I’d rather get 1,500 of the 2,000 to a really good level of math proficiency (algebra, geometry, maybe calculus, certainly statistics) so they can be math-proficient in the real world. That is far more important than the mental you-know-what of these rarefied contests.</p>
<p>(And good grief, the numbers I chose were for illustrative purposes - take them conceptually instead of arguing about whether it’s really 1 -2 out of 2,000 or 1,500 out of 2,000.)</p>
<p>But your abilities in a math competition are a narrow representation. Just as your ability to ace SATs is. There is value- same as trying to excel in gymnastics or translating Latin or perfecting debate or art skills. Is it enough? Enough for…what?</p>
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<p>If Einstein’s kid was applying with the same grades and test scores as the kid of more ordinary parents, I would lean towards Einstein’s kid, since he may be more likely to have untapped potential. For whatever reason, even some really bright kids coast through high school and “wake up” in college.</p>
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If I were the Gates Foundation or had other money to burn to support math education in low-income areas, it would seem to be the better thing to do to use that money to improve general math access for the majority of students, not worry about rewarding a teeny-tiny handful in their pursuit of an arbitrary prize that bears little relationship to anything real world. ]/quote]</p>
<p>Which is why Bill decided to endorse and support the Khan Academy, after spending a billion dollars on the GMSP. The Foundation does seek to further the tertiary education of low-income STEM students in graduate school.</p>
<p>Theoretically, Einstein’s kid would be admitted because of the name since no matter what the kid does, they would pale in comparison to the daddy. I am sure Scott McNealy of sun computers fame is a brilliant person but his kid got recruited for golf. I am sure he would have been admitted even otherwise though.</p>
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<p>Let them eat cake and find their opportunities if they are only normal-bright-potential. But if they are brilliant, oh god it’s so much more devastatingly critical to identify them.</p>
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<p>Yes, Beliavsky, we’re all aware of your view that genetics trumps anything. I wonder if you vet your children’s friends and eventual dates by how smart their parents are. (And how do you know how smart people are, anyway? It’s not at all a foregone conclusion that the set of smart people overlaps completely neatly with the set of people who attended elite colleges and / or make a lot of money.)</p>