On April 18, NDB students participated in the Stanford Math Tournament (SMT) for the first time. The SMT is a contest organized by Stanford students, held on Stanford’s campus. The event spanned two days, featuring social activities on April 17, and a full day of math competitions on April 18.
The competition day consisted of four rounds. The day started off with a team Power Round, followed by a Team Round. The Power Round is a team-based challenge where students solve problems on a novel mathematical topic to test comprehension and problem-solving skills. The Team Round consists of 15 questions, and the teammates can distribute them amongst themselves to solve within 50 minutes. The afternoon rounds are Individual Round and Guts Rounds. For the Individual Round, students can choose between the general test or two subject-specific tests in algebra, geometry, or calculus. Ultimately, the Guts Round consists of eight rounds of four questions, with scores updated live for all to see.
“I decided to participate because I enjoy participating in school math competitions and wanted to advance my competition math skills. I’ve also heard about the SMT before and thought it’d be fun to do interesting problems and participate with a team,” said Julia Saarnio, one of the participants and a junior at NDB.
This is Saarnio’s first time participating in a math tournament like this, and she emphasized what she learned from this experience. “I learned that everybody on a team has their strengths and has different things to contribute. What surprised me the most was the complexity of the problems. I knew it was going to be hard, but the problems were harder and more confusing than I expected.”
As an all-girls group in a field largely dominated by male participants, NDB’s presence was a notable one.
“It was all boys pretty much really,” Jennifer Walton, Math Department Chair at NDB, reflected on the experience. “I think it’s mostly people that [have] practice[d] those hard questions and [have] taken classes. So I was proud. Yeah, it was kind of stressful.”
Although the team did not place this year, Walton still highlighted the value of the experience. I think it’s good to get more exposure and have more women involved in things because we have a lot to bring to the table. It’s always good to give girls opportunities to experience this kind of stuff before college,” she said.
Looking forward, Walton expressed interest in making this an annual tradition. Since this year’s participation was a relatively spontaneous decision, she noted that recruiting earlier and increasing practice time will be a key goal for next year.
