State MATHCOUNTS Congratulations!

Congratulations to all the Capital District teams and students who competed at today's State MATHCOUNTS competition at RPI, as well as the many Albany Area Math Circle student coaches who helped them to prepare for a very challenging and exhilarating experience.

Math Circle member Greg Hickey from Shaker ranked 10th individually on writtens to make the State Countdown. Greg continued an amazing twelve-year "streak" for Albany Area Math Circle: in every year since 1998, the state MATHCOUNTS "top ten" has included an Albany Area Math Circle student.

Other Capital District mathletes on the state top 20 honors list included heeg's Preston Law and Farnsworth's Matt Gu, whose scores tied with the 11th-ranked student and wound up officially ranking 13th and 14th, narrowly missing the top 12 state countdown based on tie-break rules.


The photograph above shows some of our middle school math circle members in the front row with some of their student coaches behind them. The mathletes are: Zubin Mukerjee from the Farnsworth team, Gili Rusak and Greg Hickey from the Shaker team, Preston Law from heeg, and Matt Gu from Farnsworth. Behind them are Albany Area Math Circle student coaches Eric Wang, Felix Sun, and Matthew Babbitt.

Other students at state MATHCOUNTS coached by Albany Area Math Circle student coaches include Joshua Nelson of Albany Academy and Eric Wu of Acadia, coached by Andrew Ardito, who also coached Greg Hickey from Shaker. Zagreb Mukerjee and Matthew Babbitt coached Gili Rusak from Shaker, Preston Law from heeg, and and Matt Gu and Zubin Mukerjee from Farnsworth. Many other AAMC student coaches have been working with a number of middle school students building groundwork for next year and/or preparing for NYSML next month.

AAMC student coaches Eric Wang and Felix Sun coached the entire Acadia team, pictured below, which took 8th place team in a very tough competitive field of 54 top teams from all across the state.



The winning team was Hunter College High School and New York City schools were especially competitive this year, with schools from the five New York City boroughs sweeping five of the top six team ranks. We salute them--and we also salute the tremendous talents and hard work, and the great promise of the Capital District students who competed today.

We are especially excited that students from so many different schools worked together in our middle school math circles to prepare for the state contest this year, building bridges of mathematical collaboration across schools, and stimulating even greater development of problem-solving skills. The photo at left shows math circle students from Farnsworth, Albany Academy, and heeg talking over a problem after the contest.

We also salute the terrific work done by the record number of Albany Area Math Circle student coaches who worked to develop problem solving skills in students from a large number of middle schools in the Capital District this year.

By coincidence, just as the Countdown was getting underway, two of our senior Albany Area Math Circle student coaches learned some very exciting news. When MIT's Admissions Office released their decisions at 3/14 1:59 p.m. (pi day!), both of our senior student coaches were admitted to MIT today, giving additional reasons for Albany Area Math Circle celebration! Congratulations to both of you--you have made terrific contributions in your work coaching younger students, and we know you will make outstanding contributions to your college communities as well.

All in all, Pi Day 2009 was a great day for math in the Albany Area. Enjoy the slideshow below to see more.