Math Olympiad

Last year we quietly piloted a Math Olympiad program for our most advanced math students across Primer. For those that aren’t familiar, the International Math Olympiad (IMO) is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads and open to pre-college math students around the globe.

We’ve partnered with Ertan Kaya, a veteran Math Olympiad coach with over 20 years of experience, to lead the Primer Math Olympiad program, and we now have the first year-over-year results.

Students who are at the top of the achievement curve (90th+ percentile) in a given subject typically grow slower as they get older. Even if you haven’t studied education, this is intuitive – growth eventually asymptotes.

Here’s what’s interesting: the students in our Math Olympiad program are bucking this trend.

The two students below – who were already grade levels ahead in math – went from 8th and 5th percentile in yr/yr math growth (per NWEA MAP) to 98th and 85th percentile in yr/yr growth, respectively.

In many of our Primers, this is is the first-ever Math Olympiad program available in these communities – and we’re excited to scale this up next school year.