<p>So I will be a high school junior in this upcoming fall, but I’ve never done any math competitions before. I just did some AMC problems and I figured I might have a shot at USAMO if I can repeat my junior year at a math-oriented private school. I’m just turned 16 years old and found problem-solving to be incredibly fun, unfortunately, my mediocre high school didn’t have any training or information about AMC. Is it worth it to repeat a year to qualify USAMO so that I will have a better chance at MIT? Also I believe the USAMO also became more prestigious this year since it’s only top 250 as opposed to the top 500 in 2009.</p>
<p>^ No, it is not worth repeating your junior year to qualify for USAMO in order to have a better shot at MIT. Frankly, I think that’s a horrible idea.</p>
<p>If you find that you enjoy mathematics, just keep at it. Enter the AMC next year and any other math competitions that come your way. Write your admissions essay about being a latecomer to this world; MIT admits hundreds of students each year that never took the AMC at all.</p>
<p>Plenty of USAMO qualifiers get rejected. Don’t repeat junior year just to have a better chance at qualifying.</p>
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<p>From the stuff I hear going around the corners, I agree with this when taking the OP’s question on face value …</p>
<p>However, my comment is that if you think you’re more generally just figuring out what you want to do better, and discovering your talent, you may just have a better application in general [part of which could be qualifying for USAMO, although as many say, doing so is a marker of tons of competence in math ability, and probably not going to secure you admission at MIT … though to be honest, it probably will help you stand out for a number of schools]. The thrill of discovering your talent could inspire you to do lots of great things and potentially reach <<<insert great=“” school=“”>>> more prepared.</insert></p>
<p>Well math is my true passion, qualifying USAMO is like a dream rather than something meant to only be put on MIT applicaiton. It would be nice if I can end up at MIT, but I just want to have an extra year to demonstrate my math interests.</p>
<p>^ If qualifying for the USAMO is really a dream of yours apart from the college application process, then you can sit for the AMC 12 next year. You can continue math preparation through self study, starting now, and once you are in college, you can sit for the Putnam Competition. </p>
<p>I don’t agree that taking an extra year to complete high school would strengthen your application to colleges and universities. I’m not aware of any way to “repeat junior year” in a secondary school unless you have failed your coursework, although I’m sure there are many families who wish their kids could have “an extra year” to strengthen their preparation for college. </p>
<p>Just my two cents.</p>
<p>There should be ways to take an extra year other than repeating Junior year…</p>
<p>Honestly it’s tough for me to believe that having a better developed portfolio will make no positive impact. If one just spends an extra year doing the same stuff, clearly no benefit is gained. The point is if you figure things out better, you do more meaningful things. It’s not that you simply have more, but that you hopefully have better…if you’ve had a late revelation as to things you want to do.</p>
<p>But if you have no reason but to put USAMO on an application ,you likely are wasting time. I never considered the extra year thing, but then again, it would have just slowed me down and not been beneficial.</p>
<p>“Demonstrate math interests” is <em>possibly</em> a good goal, but keep in mind that your education can speed up much more when you get to college. If you think taking an extra year to prep before you enter college would be good, i.e. you don’t think you’ll be at the stage where you’re not going to grow much if you don’t move on, then you should just move on and do what CalAlum said.</p>
<p>I emphasize - being prepared for the university education can really help you be happier with what you get out of it. That’s why I’d not brush off the idea of taking an extra year before entering it.</p>
<p>In my heart of hearts though, I think that spending more than 4 years in high school is torture, so I would say if you do take an extra year, it should be doing something other than being in high school.</p>
<p>Don’t do it. As awesome as it would feel to put USAMO on the application, it’s a career mistake to lengthen your stay in high school. You always have the Putnam to shoot for in college.</p>
<p>No. For all the reasons others have said.</p>
<p>But I just feel like I need an extra to grow maturer and the top prep schools will provide so much (challenging courses, organized math team practices, great intellectual simulaitons from the peers, enthusiastic teachers, etc) what I was craving for years.</p>
<p>See with that reasoning, I’m a little more on your side, thecollegeboard. As I said, in my heart of hearts, I think staying in high school often can limit your options … but if you find your high school was very mediocre and feel making a school switch would be what will get you to become a strong, more mature thinker, who will get things out of the university education, then it <em>might</em> be worth it…</p>
<p>Just be sure to weigh that the benefit of entering a university more mature outweighs the fact that great universities will offer more than top prep high schools. That’s a tough thing to consider. View university education as your vehicle for really getting your act together, and subsequent experience as what will get your career going. </p>
<p>And be sure you’re not considering doing anything for math competition results, which you may or may not obtain, and even if you do, may or may not get you into the schools you want. Always do what you do with the best long term preparation in mind.</p>
<p>Um, no.</p>
<p>This was going to be my short answer, but I figured I’ll make it a bit longer because of the 10char limit.</p>
<p>I had a high school friend that was two years ahead in a public school, but decided to transfer to Philips Andover as a freshman to restart high school with his own age group because he decided that Andover would provide him with more of an “intellectual stimulus” and he wouldn’t be behind either since he was already so far ahead. </p>
<p>Three years pass, and he is confronted with college admissions. Unexpectedly for him, he was given a really hard time about his decision to spend six years in high school in all of his college interviews. The most common response was that if he was already two years ahead, he should have used that time to pursue a passion, to create something, to do something cool in those two years, or even enter university early, rather than going through high school again.</p>
<p>Of course, there may be differing personal reasons and such but just something for you to think about.</p>
<p>Personally, I was quite gung-ho with the AMC series in high school and I missed qualifying for the USAMO twice by one question on the AIME. I felt pretty bad the first year, so I geared myself to prepare for the next cycle through books, AoPS forums, and USAMTS. History repeated itself, and I came to see that there are no absolutes in these kind of competitions. It’s 80% effort and 20% luck, IMO. Also, qualifying for the USAMO, although an achievement, I don’t think is the biggest defining factor of your life or your college admissions process at all. If you are truly into problem solving and all, you’ll get your hand at the Putnam and college life will prepare you with intellectual stimulation far beyond any level you will be able to get at any high school. Of course, the final decision is up to you, but just throwing these things out there.</p>
<p>You have a lot of growing left to do. But don’t worry about that. You’ll probably never feel ready for whatever step your life takes next. That’s normal.</p>
<p>Stagnation and regression are rarely beneficial. Especially in such formative years. Have fun and don’t sweat the small stuff. People (admissions officers included!) will normally care far more about your life than any tests you’ve taken.</p>
<p>I know that it can be comforting to fall back onto raw numbers and test scores, but they really don’t matter much. You definitely do not want (nor do I think you would be allowed) to delay social and intellectual development for a shot at the high school mathlympics.</p>
<p>MITChris is giving you $1.00 instead of 2cents. Take it…
He and everyone here is telling you the truth.
It might not be the best choice, whether it has any positive impact on your portoilo. </p>
<p>If you are truely in love with USAMO, there are other even more prestigaos competitions out there waiting for you.</p>
<p>Stride forward! You will find more and better ways to feed your love of math in college than in high school.</p>
<p>Hahaha…I just remembered the recent MIT-Harvard Mathematics Comp.</p>
<p>Math major S was accepted to two top five math programs (inc. MIT) without ever qualifying for USAMO (though he was generally close).</p>
<p>Want to grow? Get to college.</p>
<p>^ Yeah that’s exactly what I feel. What you need to do in high school is try hard to make sure you come into college with as much going for you as you can. The rate at which you grow in 4 years usually makes it quite meaningless to squeeze in this or that into high school. </p>
<p>If you have 1 year in high school, you can better yourself plenty in that time to prepare for college.</p>
<p>Sorry, this sounds like an absolutely terrible idea to me. Lots of people get into MIT from average/mediocre schools, because the admissions officers know to take context into consideration. If you can transfer to this other, better high school, that’s great. Go for it, or do something else to demonstrate that you’re growing and learning and figuring out what you want to do. No one expects you to know what you plan to do with your life when you’re a college freshman, so they’re certainly not going to expect that of you as a high school freshman. So you didn’t know from day 1 that you wanted to do all these crazy math competitions. So what? You figured it out eventually, and did what you could when you got there. THAT’s what growing up is, not sticking around in high school for another year to “mature intellectually.”</p>