NYSML 2011

Congratulations to the hardy, energetic, intrepid, and enthusiastic band of Albany Area Math Circle students who made the long trek to the far reaches of Suffolk County on the eastern end of Long Island to represent our math circle at the annual state high school math tournament, NYSML. We are proud of all of you: Shreya Arora, Matthew Babbitt, Ryan Cheu, George Gelashvili, Cecilia Holodak, Gurtej Kanwar, Preston Law, Zubin Mukerjee, Jien Ogawa, Elizabeth Parizh, Paul Rapaport, Simran Rastogi, Gili Rusak, Schuyler, Wyatt, and Isaac Smith; Aniket Tolpadi, Jay and Philip White. We'd also like to recognize Gideon Schmidt, who eagerly and enthusiastically embraced the invitation to join in the NYSML challenge and prepared with us, but was held back at the last minute by a bout of strep throat.

Our hats are off to salute the New York City, Nassau County, and Monroe County (yay! Upstate solidarity shout-out!) teams for bringing home first, second, and third place team honors in the A-division this year. Congratulations to you!

Our hats are off as well to salute the awesome members of the Ithaca Math Circle who won first place in the B-division this year! What a year your--relatively young--math circle has had: taking home B-division honors at PUMaC, HMMT, and now NYSML. We are thrilled that our Albany Area Math Circle students will be able to join forces with you and the many other awesome Upstate New York students at ARML in June.



Congratulations as well to the individual "high scorers of the meet" who got 9 out of 10 of the individual problems correct--they were definitely tougher this year! There were no perfect scorers this year, largely due to the extreme challenge of problem #8, solved by only seven students in the state. We were pleased that two of those seven "higher scorer of the meet" students came from our Upstate NY neighbors on the Ithaca and Monroe County teams. Monroe's ever-awesome Allen Liu stayed in the tiebreaks to the very end, finishing second place in the state.

Our team high scorers this year were Matthew Babbitt, Gurtej Kanwar, and Schuyler Smith, each with 8 correct solutions. Other especially high scores included Preston Law, Zubin Mukerjee, and Jay White, who solved 7 problems; Cecilia Holodak and Paul Rapaport, who solved 6 problems; Elizabeth Parizh and Aniket Tolpadi, who solved 5 problems.

Other high points of the NYSML 2011 experience: relays went better than they did at our practices and our relay teams racked up an impressive number of points. Most impressively, there was great collaboration by Albany Area Math Circle students on the Power Round, resulting in 47 out of a possible 50 points on that round!

And, for the second year in a row, Albany Area Math Circle ranked first in New York State on the NYSML Seasonal competition! [CORRECTION May 8 NYSML Executive Director Curry informed us today that he just realized that he made an error in collating results. Bronx Science was actually first place. Albany Area Math Circle was second place.]

Shown below are Matthew Babbitt, Jay White, and Schuyler Smith accepting the plaque on behalf of Albany Area Math Circle from NYSML officials, Mrs. Susan Schneider, Ms. Toni Lynn Swinson, and Mr. George Reuter. It was a special honor and pleasure to have the award presented by Mrs. Schneider, the widow of Dr. Leo J. Schneider, a long-time NYSML official who composed countless great math contest problems that have challenged and inspired our students.





Thanks to all the NYSML officials who made the event a great experience, especially the inimitably awesome emcee and President George Reuter, the ever-organized and always helpful Vice President Anchala Sobrin. Many thanks as well to Executive Director Mike Curry, to the host committee (we now appreciate how much work is involved in preparing for an event like this one!), and to all the volunteer coaches, proctors, and scorers who made this event possible and successful.

Special thanks to all the parents who drove carpools and/or organized travel details to make it possible for our math circle students to participate. Particular thanks to Katherine Scheib and Rita Biswas, who proctored other teams, and to Dwight Cheu, who worked in the scoring room.

Extreme thanks to Bill Babbitt and Rita Biswas for organizing and coordinating countless details to make this happen.

And finally, once again, thanks to the students of the Albany Area Math Circle--your enthusiastic embrace of mathematical challenges inspires us all!