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.
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 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.
Harker middle school students earned high marks in math competitions in February and March. Fifteen students performed well enough on the American Mathematics Competition 10 (AMC10) to participate in the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), held in March. The following scores are the sum of the students’ scores on the AIME, multiplied by 10, and added to their scores on the AMC10. Eighth grader Olivia Xu scored 222 points and was the highest-scoring Harker middle school student. Right behind Xu was Ethan Liu, grade 8, with a score of 210.5, while Angela Liu and Jonathan Xue, both grade 7, each had a score of 197. Eighth grader Emma Gao scored 195. The remaining portions of the AMC, including the AIME II, the US Mathematical Olympiad and Junior Mathematical Olympiad, have been postponed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In February, students took part in the Bay Area Math Olympiad, where the Harker middle school team’s score of 93 made it the top placing team. Olivia Xu was the top scorer for Harker with a score of 32 out of 35 points, placing second overall. Ethan Liu took fourth place with a score of 31 and eighth grader Aniketh Tummala, with a score of 30 points, received an honorable mention. Seventh grader Jonathan Xue’s 29 points also earned an honorable mention.
Earlier this month, eighth graders Angelina Hu and Olivia Xu were among five students to win the inaugural Maryam Mirzakhani Award in the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) 10A Golden Section (consisting of Northern California, Northern Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific U.S. Islands). This award is given to the top scoring young women in the competition and is named for the Iranian mathematician and Stanford professor who was the first woman to receive the prestigious Fields Medal. The AMC is held annually by the Mathematical Association of America and tasks contestants with solving 25 problems in 75 minutes. The AMC 10 is intended for students in grade 10 and below.
Harker middle school students performed admirably at a recent chapter-level MathCounts competition, held Feb. 15 at the upper school. A team comprising grade 8 students Ethan Liu, Aniketh Tummala, Olivia Xu and William Zhang, coached by middle school math chair Vandana Kadam, took first place, making Harker the winning team in the Santa Clara chapter for the third consecutive year. The team will move on to the state competition, to be held March 21 at Stanford University.
Harker also had several stand-out individual performers, including Tummala, who took second place with 45 out of 46 points scored. Angela Liu, grade 7, placed fifth with a score of 44 and qualified for the state competition. Xu also scored 44 to finish in seventh place. Ethan Liu and William Zhang each scored 42 points and placed 10th and 12th, respectively. Eighth graders Emma Gao and Michelle Wei took 13th and 14th, respectively, with both students scoring 42 points. Eighth grader Joe Li placed 17th with a score of 41, Jonathan Xue, grade 7, finished in 19th with a score of 39 and Angelina Hu, grade 8, scored 37 to place 24th. Although several students scored the same number of points, tiebreakers were awarded to students who solved more difficult problems.
In addition to the main competitions, students also participated in the countdown round, in which students were given problems and a time limit of 45 seconds to solve each one. Xu emerged the winner, while Tummala took third and Zhang took fourth.
A total of 91 students from 11 schools competed at the event, which is considered to be one of the toughest chapter-level MathCounts competitions in the country.
On March 5, nearly 330 middle school students from 15 schools attended the 18th annual Diana Nichols Math Invitational. In addition to the 14 South Bay schools participating in the event (including Harker), Las Vegas’ Coral Academy of Science made the trip from out of state for the third consecutive year.
The high level of competition was evident throughout the event. A four-way tie in the grade 6 team event led to a tiebreaker that resulted in Harker’s team (Audrey Cheng, Juliana Li, Angela Liu, Katerina Matta, Kashish Priyam, Aarush Vailaya and Jonathan Xue) taking first place. Harker’s grade 8 team (Arjun Barrett, Brian Chen, Amruta Dharmapurikar, Alex Lan, Krish Maniar, Stephen Xia and Annli Zhu) also took first place, while the grade 7 team (Emma Gao, Angelina Hu, Ansh Sheth, Julie Shi, Michelle Wei, Aniketh Tummala and William Zhang) placed second.
Harker students also were successful in the individual event, with Stephen Xia, Arjun Barrett and Alex Lan taking first, third and fourth, respectively, at the grade 8 level. At the grade 7 level, Heidi Lu placed third, Aniketh Tummala took fourth and William Zhang finished fifth. Angela Liu placed second in the grade category.
The object of this year’s estimation contest was a “HMI 2019” sign made of plastic googly eyes. Contestants guessed at the number of googly eyes in the sign, with Megan Brezlin of Sunnyvale’s Peterson Middle School winning the contest with her estimate of 2,596, remarkably close to the actual number of 2,603.