If I get accepted to either of these camps, I will be a first-year student. I really want to start getting into math research, so which program would be better?
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Definitely PROMYS would be better, it’s very oriented on math research while mathcamp is more oriented on just learning math
As a first year student, you wouldn’t be doing much research at PROMYS; rather, first year studies are more geared toward an exploration of already understood concepts and branches of math. I don’t know much about Mathcamp, but PROMYS research usually doesn’t begin until one is a second year