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 allowed to work on what they’re interested in or excited about. Instead, they feel obligated to work on whatever happens to be considered the most “important” (or “prestigious”) thing possible.1
But let me do a bit of story-telling.
Hobbies
When I was kid, math contests were seen as a hobby, or sport, or game. Those were the good old days.
Today, that’s no longer true.
For example, at the end of MOP since 2011, we run a selection test called the TSTST, which chooses the finalists for the subsequent year’s IMO team. When I took the TSTST as kid, the feeling in the air was “it’s game day, GLHF!”. I didn’t solve any problems at all my first year, and I still had a blast.
Whereas in 2023, I remember visiting the testing room on the first day of TSTST to help with setting up folders and whatnot, and feeling like I was at a funeral.
The situation has gotten so bad that many students and staff have suggested that we should remove the TSTST altogether from camp. There are some operational reasons for why I don’t think this is feasible, but something about the whole story bothers me:
Honestly, I also find it disappointing that we are trying to run a summer camp for math Olympiad, and apparently are unable to run a math Olympiad during this camp, because the students’ egos are too fragile.
The idea that we should cancel TSTST seems like putting a Band-Aid to treat the symptoms of a much larger underlying issue. Something is really wrong if our top students are unable to handle taking a contest that barely counts.
Induction
It’s easy to point at the contests and say, “haha, see, contests are toxic!”. But when you drill further, I think something much deeper and scarier is going on, and the contests are just one link in a long chain.
For example, one of the reactions to people taking competition results too seriously was extensive propaganda about the uselessness of contests. Everyone is always saying, contest scores are noisy and everyone has bad days. Math contests are cringe and not real math. Competitions are one-dimensional. Contest problems are super uncreative and just solved by a bunch of tricks. There’s more to life than academics. Yada yada yada. The world gives reason after reason2 why test scores aren’t a good ruler.
In an ideal world, you would hope the outcome of this messaging would be to transform the contests back into a sport again that people stop treating like their lives depend on it, because it’s just a game, holy crap.
Do you know what happened instead?
It’s like trying to comfort an anorexic by saying their bathroom scale is an inaccurate mechanical scale.3 This works up until they buy a digital scale and spend every morning calibrating it, and now you’re worse off than you started.
Eight years ago, when I wrote the sentence
Changing the Golden Metric from olympiads to research seems to just make the world more egotistic than it already is.
it was still a hypothetical.4 Now it’s reality, and it’s not stopping there.
- It’s for this reason I consider ambition as a double-edged sword. When ambition isn’t accompanied by excitement, earnestness, curiosity, or interest, it doesn’t usually end well. ↩
- For the record, I only agree with a proper subset of the reasons that people give. But the correctness is irrelevant to the rest of the post, and this happens to be a sensitive topic, so I won’t delve further. ↩
- There’s a more general lesson here: treating symptoms instead of root causes is misguided at best and actively harmful at worst. ↩
- I better spell out this implication fully, even though I think it’s implied. The reason I’m so distrustful of the dramatic increase in demand for high school research is that I’m skeptical of the underlying motivation. If we were in a world where there were suddenly an army of smart high schoolers who were super excited about doing long-term math projects, then sure, wonderful, go do the thing you are excited about. However, based on what I actually see, I don’t think this is true (I would love to be wrong about this). ↩
Power Overwhelming 
This. I’ve seen some people say that the purpose of contests is to inculcate a culture of research in students, which to me doesn’t even make sense at all. It seems to me more like some people just want to say “Hey, I did math research in high school!”, whatever ‘research’ means. Just enjoy the math and do whatever feels fun! Nothing is more ‘real math’ than that.
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And this is why you need ECECECECEC :)
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Sarcasm intended.
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Parents
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I think you’re missing the point here. Nowdays, college admissions and society in general is a lot more competitive than it was 10 years ago. For example, I remember that UC Irvine’s acceptance rate was somewhere around 50% 10 years ago but is now around 20% today. And most of the ivies didn’t have single digit acceptance rates back then. Thus, now it is neccessary to do things to get into college since you can’t get into a decent/good college with “only” good stats, especially if you are an Asian male in CS, like it was possible back when you were applying.
These students that you are talking about are competing against each other for those same slots at HYPSM, which is what causes this competition, rather than 10 years ago, when these students thought that they would all easily get into HYPSM because competition was nowhere near where it is now. I don’t think this toxic atmosphere has anything to do with math research, rather the more competitive college admissions process than it was in 2014 when you applied.
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And this will only get worse as time goes on. I am sure that when my brother applies in 2029 it will be more competitive than 2023, and so on, all to the point where math contests and the actual beauty of the problems will no longer be appreciated, and will just be viewed as toxic. Like now, people are even going as far as to cheat on the AMCs and AIMEs which is leading to higher cutoffs and pushing these honest kids with 220-240 indexes out of the competition… It sucks, but this results based mentality is unfortunately the case of a more competitive society
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Why do you think college admissions have become so much more competitive?
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I think one reason is that there are more opportunities. For example, like in 2010-2014(when Evan was in HS), there were far less AP classes offered compared to today, so taking AP classes themselves was a way to stand out. But now, AP classes are the new honors classes. Now, even taking CC courses, which used to be a way to stand out, does not make someone stand out anymore, it is just the bare minimum. Furthermore, there are far more clubs and such compared to that era offered in schools etc. That’s why just getting good grades in tough coursework isn’t good enough to get into HYPSM anymore, and you need a spike such as USA(J)MO qualification or MOP qualification to stand out.
Even these contests themselves have gotten more competitive, in that in the past the tests used to be far easier and USA(J)MO cutoffs were significantly lower, Evan Chen made it to USAJMO with a 6 on the AIME back in his day, but now you need more like a 12(and even higher this year with the cheating). That’s because of more resources available and more opportunities for students to prep for these tests compared to the past, say when AoPS wasn’t a thing or wasn’t as widely known about.
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Hi Adi — I don’t think we actually disagree on anything here, correct me if I’m wrong.
The bit about research was supposed to be one example of the ways in which people are starting to chase prestige over interest. And the bit about students being unable to handle TSTST was supposed to be a second example. I could’ve listed more examples too (for example, talk to any of the organizers of the various enrichment camps like SUMaC or MathCamp, etc.), but those are sort of the two obvious ones to the usual audience of this blog. The overall thesis of the post that unifies them is indeed, as you said, the increased competitive high-pressure environment everywhere (even outside math olympiad contexts).
I don’t think I ever claimed that math research was the root cause, just one of several symptom nodes in the digraph (which is really a directed tree rather than a directed path, but whatever). If I seem to have implied that unintentionally, I’d like to explicitly dispel that here.
Going ever farther, I’m even hesitant to label college admissions as a root cause — sometimes I feel like it might just be another node, too, and the root cause is somehow even deeper in society.
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Ah I see what you mean, yeah. I think I just didn’t fully get your point about math research… I believed that you thought that people were getting more and more into math research because they felt it was more prestigious than contests, but now I realize that this was just an example of people going into a specific area because its more prestigious than another area.
The root is deeper within society, in fact, because college admissions have gotten more competitive for a reason and people care about them for a reason. Society has gotten more competitive in other ways too, this is why income inequality is increasing over time, especially in developed countries. In fact, this might be the root cause in that the top keep getting better off whereas the mediocre people keep getting worse off. In the past, just those going into contests were already doing far better than everyone else, but now the gap between them and say, IMO Gold Medalists got “bigger” in terms of outcomes/results. I think the same can be said about college degrees. In the 1980s, just having a degree at all made you stand out. But now, it is so hard to find a job/internship with a CS degree, and its kind of why they say that masters degrees are the new bachelors degrees. Just like IMO is the new MOP. MOP is the new JMO. JMO is the new AIME. You get my point. In terms of prestige/rewards, just because the gap between the people at the top and those in the middle is higher than the past.
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Don’t think math contests are inaccurate (at least you can be sure that people who do well are likely really good at math, although many people who are bad are actually only bad at test taking)
That’s a strawman anyways
I’m glad you can see that some math contest environments feel like a funeral these days. My heart sinks every time the kids hoot for the big names at award ceremonies. But funny that you jump to “students egos are so fragile these days” lol, the stress is just the reality as any competition gains traction. Of course highschool students in the US are generally not doing great rn
But if the point of math contests is just to have fun doing math, the competition is no longer healthy or friendly or serving the purpose. It is simply in need of a refresh, why not give it to it
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First, I agree with all your observations and sentiments, at least in the U.S. context. The arms race for college applications and achievement in general has caused a shift in the environment along the directions you mentioned. What I’d like to point out, however, is that some of your observations may not be universal. In particular, I felt that in the case of the country I grew in and also in several other developing countries, the shift in perspective of “math contests as a sport/game” to “math contests as a stepping stone towards career development” has made the environment into one that is more conducive towards learning, exploration, and growth and therefore the latter attitude is one that I openly advocate for.
In my country’s olympiad math scene, there’s a huge shift around when I was in high school; there was an active effort for the country to finally have “respectable” results at the IMO, and this was accomplished partly by top-down messaging with how ambitious, mathematically-inclined students should aim for strong results at the IMO. Over the past decade, this messaging was fully absorbed by the student body and further enhanced by these former IMO medallists consistently gaining admission to prestigious universities and going into “high-flying” career paths (this includes academia at top global institutions) that were previously thought impossible to break into.
The benefits of this change in attitude is that over the past decade, petty squabbles about specific contests (well below the AMC10 level, much less the IMO) have almost completely been eliminated. When I was in middle school, these contest-specific politics were at the forefront of the top contestants’ attention, and over time the population has shifted its focus to respect primarily the ladder that leads to the IMO because of its tangible, long-term benefits. This shift has also caused the environment to be more collaborative because when the focus is an individual’s IMO award (and the country’s olympiad pool is shallow enough that anyone at the IMO/USAMO bronze level can easily qualify), there’s less use in pulling someone else down or preventing them from surpassing oneself (which has been a large part of students’/parents’/coaches’ mindset previously).
Overall, I agree that there’s issues with the current attitude in the U.S., though it’s also important to consider how such a shift in perspective can be for the better elsewhere, in locales with vastly different social dynamics and nature of institutions.
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I’m really familiar with the pervasivee problem in society of people doing things for the wrong reasons. When I did MIT PRIMES In 2011, I was just this clueless junior who was having fun tinkering with Hilbert series in Sage, but I already saw the harmful results-oriented culture back then. Fun story, during the Siemens competition, my partner told me it’s good for me to memorize the statement of the Hilbert syzygy theorem even if I don’t understand any of what it means, so I can impress the judges…
I find that the people who engage the most in this culture are simultaneously the people who are visibly the most stressed. I think there’s a correlation between the amount of stress a person is under and how much results-oriented mentality they engage in. Actually I don’t think it’s just a correlation. My hypothesis: stress causes results-oriented mentality.
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Wish there was an edit feature, that typo is an eyesore…
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By the way, I found the perfect specimen that captures this blog post in one website:
https://www.lumiere-education.com/post/isef-the-ultimate-guide
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Now that I think about it, the Chinese slang term neijuan (內卷) describes this fairly well.
Here’s a common analogy for neijuan (aka involution). Say you’re at the movies. Suddenly, the person in front of you stands up and blocks your view, so you also have to stand up just to see the screen. But that makes the person behind you stand up, and so on. Eventually, everyone is standing up just for the same result of seeing the movie. Everyone’s wasting energy, but no one will back down.
The same thing is happening here, with olympiads being sitting and research being standing.
Eventually, someone’s going to start standing on stilts. I’m frankly terrified of what exactly that corresponds to…
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https://youtu.be/e2QKlmMT8II?t=31
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Perhaps the right message to send to kids is that getting into an elite university (and MIT in particular) shouldn’t be considered the be-all end-all of life’s achievements. Because from my experience, what college you go to (as long as it is top state school or above) doesn’t really matter in the long run. This applies to both academia and industry. In fact, being the star student of a state school may be better for a student’s growth than being top 25% at MIT. Maybe your peers are weaker on average, but you get a lot more support and research opportunities from professors.
Some background about myself (paraphrased for anonymity): I did MIT-PRIMES in high school, didn’t see the hype about MIT, and applied Early Decision to a different school (but admittedly still an elite school). I am now a professor in applied math at a top university in my field. I have PhD students who were star undergrads from top state schools, who prioritized exploring high school over playing the college arms race. They’re some of the most creative students I’ve ever met.
The high school students who are playing the math contest and research arms race… I assume they’re all hyper-focused on getting into MIT, and only MIT. That, to me, is the saddest part. Why are kids so obsessed with MIT?
MIT has a unique culture among universities, and most of my (many) friends who went there had a blast. However, statistically speaking it hasn’t been the best at nurturing young talent. Consider the fact that zero Fields Medalists have gone to MIT for undergrad or grad school, despite the fact that a large fraction of Fields Medalists are IMO medalists, many of whom end up at MIT. So maybe getting into (or attending) MIT shouldn’t be considered the gold standard for future academics.
Maybe the right message to send to kids is that the college arms race is, frankly, a pointless game to play. Enjoy high school, enjoy college, but work hard and focus on learning over results, and you will have a successful career ahead of you.
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Reading this, I realize the importance of not asking “What should I be able to do?”, and instead asking, “What do I want to do?”. Of course, you also need to be reasonable in this approach. 😅
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