An Exciting Summer Math Camp Experience
MercerCounty MathCircle
Hello, Mercer County Math Circle students and parents! We’re now accepting applications for the 23rd annual Canada/USA Mathcamp residential summer program for mathematically talented teenagers.
What, When and Where? Mathcamp is a 5-week residential summer program. This summer, we’ll be at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington from July 5th to August 9th. In that short time, our goal is to introduce students to the beauty and variety of pure and applied math, allowing each student to craft her or his own schedule by working with an academic advisor to design an individualized balance of classes, projects, homework time, and relaxation. As one student described the program: “Each year, I grow more in five weeks of Mathcamp than in 47 weeks away. I am a much better mathematician, and a much better person for it.”
Who comes to Mathcamp? We have 120 students each year, ages 13 - 18. The students come from a wide variety of backgrounds and from all over the world, but each is talented and passionate about math. Many of the students are returning alumni, and the alums help to preserve Mathcamp's culture of learning, respect, and creativity.
What will Mathcamp be like? Mathcamp is an intense, immersive experience in the world of mathematics, filled with classes, field trips, and fun. Mathcamp instructors are professors and graduate students from top universities and your fellow students will be some of the smartest and most interesting people you have ever met, all coming together for a summer of discovery, camaraderie, and excitement. You can learn about areas of math that most people don’t encounter until college or graduate school: pushing the boundaries of abstraction with Category Theory, modeling real-world behavior with Game Theory, or imagining new universes with Hyperbolic Geometry. Or you might focus on sharpening your problem-solving skills, or spend your time on a research project. The central goal of Mathcamp is to allow you to take charge of your education.
The autonomy goes beyond the curriculum. Outside of class, activities range from chess and board games to soccer and frisbee to salsa dancing and improv and rehearsals for the camp choir. On the weekends, we’ll go hiking, whitewater rafting, exploring Seattle, and lots more. All of these activities are optional, and you can choose simply to spend time with friends or curl up with a book. The staff live in the dorms and socialize informally with the students, sharing hiking trips and Scrabble games, and together, the students and staff form a close-knit community.
Can I afford it? The short answer is YES. We offer generous scholarships based on financial need, and we work with each family to make sure that you get the level of support you need.
About 20% of our students receive full scholarships: Mathcamp is FREE for US & Canadian families with household income below $60,000 US, and we even have travel grants to cover plane tickets to camp.
Above $60,000, we offer a sliding scale, and those who need assistance will be asked to contribute no more than 3% of their income. There is no set formula: we consider each request on an individual, case-by-case basis.
The full camp fee is $4000 US. (This includes tuition, room, board, & extracurriculars.)
We are deeply committed to making it possible for every qualified student to attend, regardless of financial circumstances. The hard part of getting to Mathcamp is the math; once we find great students, we make sure that money doesn’t stand in their way.
How do I apply? The process starts now, with the Qualifying Quiz (www.mathcamp.org/quiz): an untimed entrance exam, designed to be challenging and fun. The Quiz is the central component of the application, and it’s our tool for evaluating when students are ready for Mathcamp. The application also includes two letters of recommendation, a personal essay, and some information about you and your math background. The deadline to apply is April 15th.
For more information: visit us at www.mathcamp.org.