<p>Yes, I concur with soomoo about the level of work at top schools. It’s awesome and finally challenging for many of the kids, my son included. He is starting with junior level math classes at MIT because of his work in high school and he finds it so interesting. It’s hard, make no mistake, and the work load, at least at MIT, for four academic classes, is about 30 hours a week of homework.</p>
<p>My son also knows several IMO winners in his dorm, but I’m not sure what classes they take. I would say that kids who’ve done high level math competitions (my son only got as far as AIME in math three times but did physics olympiad semi-finals three times) have perhaps a slight advantage in that they are already extremely quick and familiar with problem solving.</p>
<p>My son had less experience (only started in 10th grade) than most of his friends at MIT who began competitions from a very young age. He says he’s learning to think even faster than he did before and he’s happily challenged by those around him.</p>