I’m not an expert on this but have a PhD in an applied math field and grew up with a father who was described to me at a NAS meeting as a virtuouso mathematician among theoretical physicists. My son showed real talent at math but was also severely dyslexic and in HS, we partially homeschooled him at the suggestion of his HS. We did math and reading/writing outside of school. He found honors HS math trivial and tedious. For math, I hired a grad student to work with him for 2 1.5 hour sessions a week. He did junior honors math in less than a semester. She did work with him on math tournament problems, a segment on game theory, I think a segment on number theory, calculus, … . I didn’t push him in math because he really needed to improve his reading (comprehension outstanding but speed very slow) and especially his writing. The main thing was to keep him interested and facile rather than pushing acceleration. So, I wonder if experimentation and learning would be attractive without the need to accelerate.
In college, I encouraged him to take a math course a semester because a) he was interested in economics; b) math has very little reading; and c) it was very easy for him. So, he became an accidental math major alongside his interest in behavioral economics. The math training was of real value when he got a graduate degree in computational and mathematical engineering (CME). One of the PhD students in CME was an extremely bright 14 yo. Not sure how well adjusted the kid would end up being.
I believe that one of my colleagues taught at a Hampshire College Summer Program in math which focused on number theory. My colleague began his career in number theory before branching out and loved to participate in the program. I wonder if that would be good for OP’s son.
Thank you, will look into this! Acceleration takes the back spot when compared to exploration for us. We can probably keep taking college Math classes for credit or graduate early. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to provide her with a peer group that has the same interests as hers and possibly will help each other reach a common goal.
@Cendi, we tried a variety of things. We tried normal HS courses. One was a more remedial kind of course. Did not do much. A couple were a traditional read a book, write a paper, read another book, write another paper courses. They did not help. I went over the papers with him and would point out weak transitions, fuzzy or filler words, problematic organization. He’d say, “Dad, I’m going to get an A. I’m tired.” In general, my conclusion, which we had put in the IEP was that instead of writing many papers, he should rewrite the same paper over and over until he got it. But, his HS teachers would not do that (clear violation of IEP but not worth fighting, which is why we switched to partial home-schooling). We hired a writer / writing teacher to work with him. We did a summer course at Harvard that was the equivalent of the writing course Harvard students have to take. Things improved a bit.
But, the real change drew on his deeply competitive urge. He chose, on his own, to sign up for a Moot Court competition in his junior year. He loved constructing arguments. The host of the competition would pick a Supreme Court case and each team of two would be assigned one side. Each side would prepare a brief. One player would deliver it and the other would be in charge of responding to the other side’s brief (I think). My son would aways write the brief. He would have 10 minutes to deliver it. He has a bit of a speech delay so 10 minutes for him was like 8 minutes for a normal person. So, absolutely every word mattered. I would read the Supreme Court case to him. He would dictate a draft to me of the brief. (I’m not a lawyer). We went over the first one and I saw lack of tightness, fluff words, weak transitions etc. He didn’t want to address them. But then, he listened to an outstanding team argue the opposite side of the case the day before. He saw how much better a good brief could be. He said, “Dad, can we go over my brief. It has filler words, weak transitions, … . Can you help me fix it?” So, I would go over it word by word with him and we would tighten it and improve the transitions, etc. and discuss exactly what we were doing. Each round, we would revise the brief for that round several times to shorten and tighten it without losing his argument. His team lost in the semifinals, I believe, but we had quite a few rounds. By the end of it, he knew exactly what to do. The following year he would write the brief and show it to me but he had taken out all the fluff words and had clear, tight transitions. I would look it over but he didn’t need me. He made it to the finals in front of Massachusetts judges but was very sick that week and came in second. The combination of a short but very clear task and the deep desire to win fueled him.
He took that precision of writing into his college courses. He still finds high volumes of reading and writing to be pretty taxing, but the quality of his writing is high.
No one has suggested Davidson Online yet. That might be an option.
Ultimately the top talent usually has a top tutor and they usually just do the work, line by line, problem by problem. AOPS seem to be the standard. Summer programs are interesting and social opportunities are important but as was stated, nothing replaces the work.
Mr. Math or UCLA Math Circle usually can provide tutors
I was in your exact same position with my 0.1%er. My simple solution? Kahn Academy. Seriously. It’s free and they can just keep going to their hearts content. There isn’t anything in the for profit summer programs on-line that’s any different from Kahn. We tried the fancy expensive ones (in our case CTD at Northwestern) and they were great in person. But on-line? Kahn’s got the on-line thing down.
I feel I should add… she’s a computational theoretical physicist now. Started Uni at 14. Loved Kahn Academy. That and MIT’s free online content. Worked for her.