<p>While I agree that you don’t need much contest math experience to do higher math (although if you are struggling to qualify for the AIME, you might want to review the basics), I would take some of phuriku’s statements with a grain of salt. It may be true that UChicago students put little weight behind the Putnam, but that doesn’t mean that students at other schools take the competition much more seriously. It seems more reasonable that many students who indeed did very well at math competitions in the past did not limit themselves to the basics of elementary mathematics.</p>
<p>Having said that, a math competition background is a decent indicator of your problem solving abilities. Nevertheless, there is no reason to confine yourself to topics in elementary mathematics. You should be able to move on to more advanced mathematics, knowing that your experience in problem-solving will serve you well in many areas. But again, don’t think that the contest mathematics itself is more important than it really is for college mathematics.</p>