<p>I don’t think MIT devotes much time or resources institutionally to training people for the Putnam.</p>
<p>Poetgrl - </p>
<p>I don’t think we necessarily disagree about chances at elites or potential success rates for various strategies or even about strategies to get there. </p>
<p>But thanks for the information.</p>
<p>Cobrat -
As for videogames - my kids primarily play games on their computers, which is required for school. I stopped buying them any videogames/ consoles. The only console they have is a Wii, which they almost never use because they have found that they can play free MMO and MMORPG games with their friends from school on their laptops. </p>
<p>It got pretty bad at our school - kids are so motivated to play these games that they’ve figured out how to bypass the school filters to play these games. When I pick up my kids after school, there are gaggles of boys sitting around tables all on their laptops playing computer games. It’s rather disturbing.</p>
<p>My kids actually think that I am holding out on them - all their friends have iPads, Kindle Fires, iPhones, Xbox etc… or so they tell me.</p>
<p>In terms of my childhood - parents middle class. We had an Atari in the 80’s and a Nintendo in the 90’s. Fortunately I seem to have done OK…</p>
<p>all right, Tex. I can wait. What shot game are we playing? The one where we all take shots at Beliavsky, or where we shoot holes in his links?</p>
<p>Ha, mine only got into Math Mountain (or something like that; they were young.). They liked Amazon Trail, but I hogged it. Girls.</p>
<p>I thought the game is to drink shots when the name is mentioned?</p>
<p>My oldest still plays pokemon, but that’s a handheld, and an eccentricity.</p>
<p>ETA: Tex, I was willfully misunderstanding you, much as many are doing on this thread. I thought it was part of the thread culture. Also, how do you add a tag? We can add Espenshade!</p>
<p>Now, you take a shot.</p>
<p>I really think we should have had this game about MIT, though.</p>
<p>Tpg- Uh-oh. I think D1 may know a few drinking games.</p>
<p>Oh, ha, ha! Thanks for pointing that out to me, texaspg #1199. I don’t think I’ve mentioned MIT much on this thread. Some of the other threads I’ve participated in maybe deserved to be tarred that way.</p>
<p>Maybe a moderator could remove the tag? If that’s permissible to ask?</p>
<p>I think lately I have been on a hobbyhorse about people being described in mechanistic terms. I think it’s hurtful. No one needs to be careful about hurting a robot’s feelings, because they have none (so far, anyway). </p>
<p>Over in the MIT forum, MITChris has acknowledged some of my points about the way MIT presents itself. I appreciate this. Incidentally, he seemed to like my idea of extending “Celebrating Our Common Humanity Day” to a full month.</p>
<p>When the talk here turned to white suburban kids all being the same and not having differences nor knowing different sorts… But that was, I think, self labelled.</p>
<p>And maybe a moderator could take off “insufferable,” too? I’m not even sure which group of posters that’s supposed to be.</p>
<p>Oh, I think insufferable probably sums us all up to anybody who has been following this conversation from thread to thread for the past few months. ;)</p>
<p>ETA: Learn to proofread is a tag that always shows up when one poster shows up. Cracks me up. I think she finds our lack of proofreading to be insufferable. She hasn’t been here yet, clearly.</p>
<p>Like we don’t have lives.</p>
<p>Novimom,
The mathematicians I am talking about stopped competing before they graduated from HS. They focused on problems that take months and years to solve, rather than several hours as those on Putnam.</p>
<p>I could throw in a half-hour devoted to “Celebrating Our Common Insufferability.”</p>
<p>Who would want to tag a bunch of poorly proofread threads?</p>
<p>I don’t know. It seems to be a late night obsession. Maybe it’s more than one poster, but it seems to me to be one.</p>
<p>QM–If you throw in a day of celebrating our common insufferability, I’ll join you in a week for our humanity.</p>
<p>After that, I’m back to being on the side of the robots. Sorry, but I saw the Matrix. I know we’re never going to win.</p>
<p>collegealum314, MIT has a course (or seminar - I don’t remember exactly) for Putnam prep. It’s a known fact that Putnam is a big deal at MIT.</p>
<p>“Known facts” are my favorite cites.</p>
<p>Okay Yolochka, point taken.<br>
However, if you Google individual Putnam fellows I think you will find they do fairly well in the world of math academia.</p>
<p>Every freshman has to take a seminar. I think the time commitment was ~1hr a week.</p>