Math team places fourth in Stanford Tournament

The in-person Saratoga High School team receives medals for scoring fourth place overall.

The mathletes placed top 10 in all team categories from the highly competitive tournament. Online competitors also saw top results on the general and calculus tests.

The Stanford Math Tournament (SMT), which takes place every year in April, is a team-based math competition for high school students. Only one team from Saratoga High attended SMT, placing fourth overall.

SMT Online, also hosted by Stanford University, is open to high school students and younger and was hosted on April 14, one day after SMT. The SMT online team placed outside of the top 25% overall.

The SMT team consisted of freshman Seabert Mao, sophomore Lawson Wang, juniors Ishani Agarwal, Alan Lu and Skyler Mao and senior Bryan Li.

Because a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Class of ‘28 meetup was planned on the same day as the tournament, MIT-committed seniors Advaith Avadhanam and Victoria Hu — who often attend and excel in math competitions — were unable to attend.

“The competition was also affected since a bunch of the really good seniors [from the other teams] were also at the MIT meetup, so it was easier,” Lu said. “I think we were a very cohesive and solidified team even with the advanced problems.”

Teams at the tournament took three tests together — the power round, a proof-based exam focusing on a specific topic, which was about voting systems this year; the team round, a short answer test covering algebra, geometry and discrete mathematics; and the guts round, a live-scored test in which teams must submit one problem set before receiving the next.

Team members also individually took either two subject tests, in which they chose two topics from algebra, calculus, discrete and geometry, or a general test that covered all subjects except calculus, worth less points and targeted toward beginners in competitive math.

The team placed eighth in the guts round, fourth in the power round and fourth in the team round, receiving multiple honorable mentions and distinguished honorable mentions in the individual rounds. The power round made up 30% of the overall score, the team round made up 20% of the overall score, the individual tests made up 30% of the overall score and the guts round made up 20% of the overall score.

Lu’s scores on the algebra and geometry tests qualified him for the tiebreaker rounds for both the algebra and geometry tests. He placed tenth in geometry.

“I felt I did well on the individual round, making tiebreakers for both topics,” Lu said. “I was a bit nervous though, making my tiebreaker results disappointing.”

The five days leading up to the Saturday of the contest, SMT organizers posted daily problems online for competitors to solve. Answers to the problems were graded on time and accuracy. Skyler and Seabert both won one day each by being the first to entirely and correctly solve a problem of the day.

SHS also sent a team to SMT online, “Saratoga 1”, consisting of freshmen Mona Chen and Derek Wang, sophomores Nicole Hao, Lydia Li, Vedant Padhi, Max Rombakh and Nika Svizhenko. Freshman Andy Lu and junior Alan Cai also competed on a team not affiliated with the school called SMT Acacia.

Unlike the in person competition, SMT online required all competitors to compete in the tiebreaker rounds, regardless of their score. Honorable mentions were given to the top 25% scores, and distinguished honorable mentions were given to the top 10% scores.

Hao received an honorable mention for the general test, Cai received a distinguished honorable mention for the general test, Rombakh received a distinguished honorable mention for algebra and an honorable mention for calculus and Andy received a distinguished honorable mention for algebra and a distinguished honorable mention for calculus. SMT Acacia and Saratoga 1 received honorable mentions for the power round.

“Despite facing various difficulties, like fierce competition or being paired with random teammates, I’m pretty satisfied that I was able to get distinguished honorable mentions in both individual subjects,” Andy said. “Next year, I look forward to competing in the in-person team and making more friends.”