Where do all the smart, curious, earnest kids go these days? One of my friends asked me this recently, and I wasn’t sure what to say. In the last ten years, something has changed. If I had to summarize my concerns in one sentence, I would say this: kids these days no longer feel they’re… Continue reading Infinitely many stages of grief
(EC)⁵: College Essay Consulting
Calling all high school juniors! We’re proud to announce a new educational service to accompany last year’s ⛵IS: Evan’s Chen’s Elite Cutting-Edge College Essay Consulting & Editing Center! Abbreviated (EC)⁵. Why trust Evan? Evan Chen is one of the leading names in admissions to elite American colleges. Students that Evan has mentored have gone on… Continue reading (EC)⁵: College Essay Consulting
Brianchon is fair game
About five years ago I wrote a blog post warning that I thought it was a bad idea to design math olympiads to be completely untrainable, because I think math olympiads should be about talent development rather than just talent identification, yada yada yada. So now I want to say the other direction: I also… Continue reading Brianchon is fair game
NP-hard advice questions
Sometimes I get asked broad advice questions on solving problems, for example questions like: How do I know when to switch or prioritize approaches I come up with? How do I know which points or lines to add in geometry problems? How can I tell if I’m making progress on a problem? How can I… Continue reading NP-hard advice questions
Against exploitable rubrics
Editorial note: this post was mostly written in February 2023. Any resemblance to contests after that date is therefore coincidental. Background A long time ago, rubrics for the IMO and USAMO were fairly strict. Out of seven, the overall meta-rubric looks like: 7: Problem solved 6: Tiny slip (and contestant could repair) 5: Small gap… Continue reading Against exploitable rubrics
January newsflash
Here’s a mix of several publicity-related things I’d like to broadcast. AlphaGeometry A lot of you have already heard the buzz about the AlphaGeometry news and Nature paper. (I’ve known about this paper for a while now, so I’m glad I can finally talk about it!) I managed to snag a cameo in the DeepMind… Continue reading January newsflash
MOHS was a mistake
I remember reading a Paul Graham essay about how people can’t think clearly about parts of their identity. In my students, I have never seen this more clearly than when people argue about the difficulty of problems. Some years ago I published a chart of my ratings of problem difficulty, using a scale called MOHS.… Continue reading MOHS was a mistake
OTIS Mock AIME 2024
This is a short advertisement announcing that the OTIS Mock AIME 2024 is out. The short version is that I wanted to give my students a chance to try their hand at problem composition, which they took enthusiastically, and from their submissions I chose 15 problems to replicate an AIME. There's some really nice problems… Continue reading OTIS Mock AIME 2024
An advertisement for what puzzle hunts are about and why they’re cooler than everyday puzzles
I remember when I got the central aha, I justified it to my teammates as “it’d be so cool, so it has to be right”. — Nathan Pinsker This is a post meant to explain what makes puzzle hunts appealing to people who haven't done them before. If you do care about the actual mechanical… Continue reading An advertisement for what puzzle hunts are about and why they’re cooler than everyday puzzles
Things I’ve learned from running OTIS
Note: if you are a prospective OTIS student, read the syllabus instead. More useful, less bragging. In the unlikely event that I’m a social gathering like a party or family gathering, people will sometimes ask me about my teaching. Invariably they ask, “so do you do like 1:1 meetings or group lessons?”. Then I have… Continue reading Things I’ve learned from running OTIS
Power Overwhelming 