On March 25, a team of seven Harker students coached by middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam participated in the California State MathCounts competition held at the University of Pacific in Stockton. The competition included 166 top-performing students from the various chapter MathCounts competitions in Northern California. Harker’s team – Sylvia Chen, Shamik Khowala, Jonathan Li and Heather Wang, all grade 8 – did exceptionally well, placing third. Independent grade 7 competitors Vihaan Gupta, Aarav Mann and Andrew Shi also performed well.
In addition, Chen placed sixth and Gupta placed ninth in the individual competition, where every point differential made a significant difference in the rank.
Chen and Gupta also reached the finals of the Countdown Round, a rapid-fire oral buzzer round where students get 45 seconds to solve problems. Chen won by being the first to answer three out five questions correctly. The top sixteen performers (from the group of 166 mathletes) are invited to participate in this round. This is the first time in Harker’s MathCounts history that two Harker students have participated in the final round of the Countdown competition.
The 22nd annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational for grades 6 to 8, held March 18, was a highly successful event with 18 schools and about 380 contestants taking part in individual and team contests. There were 60 competing and six non-competing teams for the team contest.
In individual competition, Harker’s Jeffery Wang placed fourth in the grade 7 category, while Hengrui Liang and Haofang Zhu took first and second, respectively, in the grade 8 category, with Zhu tying for second place.
In teams, Harker sixth graders Taddy Fujimura, Mark Han, Rafa deGoma, Ethan Weyn, Eric G. Zhang, Lucas Zhang and Jocelyn Zhao placed second in the grade 6 category. In the grade 8 category, Kevin Chen, Audrey Hu, Aaron Luo, Ryan Miao, Lily Peng, Sanjith Senthil and Haofang Zhu placed third.
The full results are found below.
Scores for individual winners have been placed in brackets with the total from actual questions followed by any bonus questions. All ties were broken according to difficulty level of questions.
Individual Event
Grade 6: 25 total possible points
Rank
Name of Student
Name of School
1
Charlie Huang (18 + 4)
The King’s Academy
2
Austin Jin (18 + 0)
BASIS Independent Silicon Valley
3
Katherine Li (17 + 2)
Kennedy Middle School
4
Keith Li (16 + 2)
BASIS Fremont
5
William Mao (16 + 2)
Stratford Preparatory, Blackford
Grade 7: 30 total possible points
Rank
Name of Student
Name of School
1
Michael Tang (24 + 4)
Miller Middle School
2
Sophia Fan (23 + 0)
Miller Middle School
3
Calvin Strohmann (22 + 2)
Kennedy Middle School
4
Jeffery Wang (22 + 1)
The Harker School
5
Henry Wang (22 + 0)
Miller Middle School
Grade 8: 30 total possible points
Rank
Name of Student
Name of School
1
Hengrui Liang (20 + 4)
The Harker School
2 (tie)
Haofang Zhu (20 + 1)
The Harker School
2 (tie)
Benjamin Zhang (20 + 0)
Miller Middle School
4
Ian Chen (19 + 2)
Miller Middle School
5
Ashmit Arasada (19 + 0)
Miller Middle School
Team Contest
Team Members
School
Place
Grade
Chloe Chen, Katherine Li, Brianna Su, Ashita Thakkar, Natalie Yao, Justin Zhang and Ella Zheng
Kennedy Middle School
6D
First
6
Taddy Fujimura, Mark Han, Rafa deGoma, Ethan Weyn, Eric G. Zhang, Lucas Zhang and Jocelyn Zhao
The Harker School
6P
Second
6
Emma Jin, Charlie Huang, Kaden Leong, Isaac Chi, Dylan wan, Fiona Wu and Aidan Zhang
The King’s Academy
6N
Third
6
Sophia Fan, Tanish Kolhe, Ishaan Mittal, Michael Tang, Henry Wang, Frank Xia and Hanyu Zhang
Miller Middle School
7J
First
7
Kevin Chen, Bryan Ge, Joseph He, Zheng Sheng He, Xuanyi Ma, Adya Seker and Calvin Strohmann
Kennedy Middle School
7G
Second
7
Gopal Deshpande, Victoria Huang, Sean Huang, Catherine Jian, Tianlin Liu, Yunfei Xia and Leo Zhang
Miller Middle School
7K
Third
7
Ashmit Arasada, Andy Chen, Ian Chen, Christopher Lu, Nitin Vaka, Benjamin Zhang and Shannon Zhang
Miller Middle School
8G
First
8
Rehan Babu, Yutong Chen, Theeran Sathish Kumar, Qixuan Mu, Elaina Pan, Sohum Uttamchandani and Derek Wang
Kennedy Middle School
8F
Second
8
Kevin Chen, Audrey Hu, Aaron Luo, Ryan Miao, Lily Peng, Sanjith Senthil and Haofang Zhu
In November, 15 Harker students earned high marks at the Berkeley Math Tournament, held at the University of California, Berkeley. The largest university-sponsored high school math competition on the West Coast, it attracted more than 600 students, the most in its history. A total of 18 Harker students (three teams with six students each) participated in the tournament. Individual competitors had the choice of taking a general test or competing in two of the tournament’s four focus subjects: algebra, calculus, discrete math and geometry.
Students who received awards in the tournament are as follows:
Aman Chandra, grade 9 – Honorable mention (top 50 percent) in geometry
Emma Gao, grade 11 – HM in calculus, Distinguished HM (top 20 percent) in discrete math
Jessica Hu, grade 9 – HM in calculus
Alex Huang, grade 10 – HM on general test
Neil Krishnan, grade 10 – HM in algebra, DHM in geometry
Catherine Li, grade 11 – HM in calculus, HM in geometry
Ian Ogden, grade 11 – Seventh and DHM in algebra, HM in discrete math
Caden Ruan, grade 9 – DHM in algebra
Aniketh Tammula, grade 11 – HM in algebra, HM in geometry
Michelle Wei, grade 11 – HM on general test
Stephen Xia, grade 12 – HM in calculus, DHM in discrete math
Olivia Xu, grade 11 – DHM in geometry
Jonny Xue, grade 10 – HM in algebra
Eddie Zhang, grade 9 – HM in algebra
William Zhang, grade 11 – HM in algebra, seventh and DHM in geometry (after a third-to-eighth tiebreaker)
The Harker Math Club, coached by upper school math teacher Anu Aiyer, just won the fall 2022 high school Math Madness championship. It was the club’s first time winning the competition since 2015. Held by AreteLabs, the biannual online competition consists of four league rounds and six tournament bracket rounds. Teams compete in 30-minute matches with two teams facing off at a time. Teachers schedule the times for their teams to complete the seven or eight multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank questions that make up each match. Approximately 20,000 students participate in Math Madness competitions each year.
Last weekend, at the 14th annual Math Prize for Girls competition, held at MIT, junior Olivia Xu (pictured, center) placed 11th out of 240 competitors, earning a $300 prize, and junior Catherine Li received an honorable mention. As top 36 placers, Xu and Li are eligible to compete in the Math Prize Olympiad.
Invitations to the competition were extended to the top 300 girls who participated in last year’s American Math Competition (AMC). Competitors were tasked with answer 20 short-answer questions in two-and-a-half hours.
The event, which was emceed by Nitya Mani ’15, who is now a Ph.D. student at MIT, also included a game night and a campus tour and admissions talk for prospective students.
The 21st annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational for grades 6-8, held in March at the upper school campus, was a highly successful event with 15 schools and 270 contestants taking part in the individual and team contests. There were 51 competing and nine non-competing teams for the team contest.
Harker students had several top individual and team placings. In individual competition, Andrew Shi took second place in the grade 6 category, while classmates Vihaan Gupta and Jeffrey Wang took fourth and fifth, respectively. In the grade 7 category, Haofang Zhu placed first while Daniel Zhu finished in third place. Caden Ruan and James Lin placed second and fifth, respectively, in the grade 8 category.
In the team competitions, Harker’s grade 6 team of Manalee Chowdhury, Vihaan Gupta, Aarav Mann, Andrew Shi and Haofang Zhu placed second. The team of Aanya Aggarwal, Nathan Yee, Ava Zarkesh, Ellie Zhou and Haofang Zhu placed second in the grade 7 team event and in the grade 8 event, the team of Jaden Fu, Anika Rajaram, Brenna Ren, Caden Ruan and Terry Xie placed second.
Noah Song from Peterson Middle School was the winner of this year’s estimation contest, guessing 150 meters for the length of the Pi chain hung around the auxiliary gymnasium. This was the closest to the actual length of 147.2 meters.
At last month’s Bay Area Mathematics Olympiad, Harker won second place team awards at the BAMO-8 and BAMO-12 levels for middle and high school students, respectively. Team awards are determined by comparing the sums of the top three scores from each team. Harker also took second place in the BAMO-12 participation awards, which are awarded to schools with the most students who scored at least seven points.
Harker students performed very well individually. In BAMO-8, eighth grader Lily Shi scored 30 out of a possible 35 points and eighth graders Caden Ruan, Kallie Wang and seventh grader Axel Szolusha each received an honorable mention for scoring between 27 to 29 points. At the BAMO-12 level, ninth grader Aarush Vailaya scored a perfect 35 points, while junior Sally Zhu scored 32. Catherine Li, Ethan Liu and Rohan Ramkumar received honorable mentions for scoring 25 to 31 points.
Each BAMO consists of five essay questions that must be solved within a four-hour time limit.
Harker students participated in two math competitions last month, with commendable results in both. On Feb. 19, at the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament, the Harker team of senior Alex Hu, junior Sally Zhu, 10th graders Olivia Xu and William Zhang, and ninth grader Jonny Xue, placed 29th out of 91 teams, their best performance in the competition since Harker began participating in 2016. In the Carnegie-Mellon Informatics and Mathematics Competition, held virtually on Feb. 27, the team of Hu, Zhu and juniors Stephen Xia and Anthony Tong placed seventh in the Theoretical Computer Science portion.
Middle school mathematics department chair Vandana Kadam recently won the Edyth May Sliffe Award, which is awarded to middle and high school math teachers who have shown dedication to teaching by motivating students to participate in the American Mathematics Competitions. Kadam last won the award in 2018. Candidates for this award are nominated by colleagues, students, parents and administrators, and winners are chosen based on criteria such as demonstrated improvement in AMC scores over multiple years, increased participation in the competitions and increased participation in invitational events such as the American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME) and the USA Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO).
Harker middle school math students had a series of successes this past spring. Angela Liu, grade 8, placed in the top 20 at the national Mathcounts competition, held May 8-10. Liu competed as one of four representatives from California, considered the most competitive state. California placed second overall in the competition. Liu was one of three Harker middle school students to reach the state finals, along with eighth graders Jacqueline Huang and Jonny Xue. Harker’s Mathcounts students were coached by Vandana Kadam, middle school math department chair, who was California team coach in 2020.
Mathcounts also hosts a video contest, in which Harker was a top four finalist. Eighth graders Jacqueline Huang, Juliana Li, Kashish Priyam and Sophia Zhu’s video, “Banking on Math,” was the first video Harker had ever submitted for the competition.
Earlier in spring, the 20th annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational for grades 6-8, held March 21, was a highly successful event with 17 schools and about 432 contestants taking part in the individual and team contests. There were 79 competing and 15 non-competing teams for the team contest.
In individual competition at the sixth grade level, Haofang Zhu took first place, Claire Tian placed third and Sylvia Chen placed fourth. At the eighth grade level, Julian Li placed third and Aarush Vailaya, Agastya Ravuri and Jeremy Peng tied for fourth.
In team competition, Harker teams took the top three spots at the sixth grade level, with team 6A (Sylvia Chen, Risa Chokhawala, Rohan Goyal, Raeanne Li, Iona Liu, Aaron Luo and Claire Tian) placing first, 6C (Nyssa Kansal, Brandon Labio, Lucas Lum, Lily Peng, Sanjith Senthil, Sri Srinavasan and Graham Zhang) placing second and 6B (Audrey Hu, Shamik Khowala, Ridhan Randheri, Axel Szolusha, Nathan Yee, Haofang Zhu and Ellie Zhou) placing third. At the grade 7 level, Harker team 7A (Jaden Fu, Jessica Hu, Brenna Ren, Caden Ruan, Lily Shi, Kallie Wang and Tiffany Zhu) took third place. At the grade 8 level Harker Team 8A (Audrey Cheng, Neil Krishnan, Juliana Li, Kashish Priyam, Aarush Vailaya, Jessica Wang and Alex Zhong) placed second, while team 8A (Ainslie Chen, Tiffany Gu, Katerina Matta, Jeremy Peng, Agastya Ravuri, Max Zhai and Sophia Zhu) placed third.