Math team excels at national meet

The first Montana team to compete at the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament in Boston exceeded all expectations.

The team ranked 44th out of 135 teams made up of top mathletes from around the world. Team Montana coach Jon Graham, a University of Montana statistics professor, noted that many of the top teams hailed from China.

Glacier High School junior Silas Schwarz was part of the team, which included Jonathan Chen, Lewistown; Magnolia Chinn, Sentinel; Carolyn Graham, Hellgate; Jackson Hall, home school from Billings; and Jack Murphy, Helena Capital.

Individually, Hall was the Montana team’s top performer, finishing 76th out of 784 students.

Hall assembled the team based on the students’ mathematical prowess at a 2013 Montana Mathcounts middle school competition.

The team has been practicing for the November competition for two years studying problems written by Harvard and MIT students. There were four rounds of problems that students competed in.

“I would describe the problems as ‘Mathcounts on steroids,’” Graham wrote in an email. “They are very challenging with a difficulty level somewhere between AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination) and Olympiad-level problems.”

In addition to competing, the Montana team toured Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University and the Freedom Trail where the students acted out the Boston Massacre on a busy street corner Graham said.  

“We had a great time and it was a wonderful way to finish off this two-year adventure,” Graham said.

Hilary Matheson is a reporter for The Daily Inter Lake. She may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.