Fulton Science Academy Math Team Advances To Nationals

Fulton Science Academy’s Middle School Math Team won First Place in the 2018 Georgia MATHCOUNTS Competition that was held at Saint Luke Presbyterian Church on Monday, March 19, 2018.

Additionally, two FSA students, Richard Yu and Athiwat Ackaramongkolrotn, and the school’s Department Head and Math Team Coach, Mrs. Sema Duzyol, will head to Nationals in Washington DC later this spring.
Only the top four students from each state are invited to participate in the National MATHCOUNTS Competition, as well as the coach from the state’s ranking first place team who is given the unique opportunity to lead the state team to Nationals. This is the third consecutive year that Fulton Science Academy Private School has had at least one student and its coach advance to the National MATHCOUNTS.
“I am thrilled to be coaching Georgia’s MATHCOUNTS Team and to be representing Georgia at the National Tournament three years in a row,” said Coach Duzyol.
In addition to an overall first place team win in the state finals, FSA was honored to have seventh grader, Richard Yu, place first individually and sixth grader, Athiwat Ackaramongkolrotn, place third individually on March 19 against the best mathletes in the state. Bringing further accolades to the school, seventh graders, Ethan Gao, Arnav Arora, and Kevin Yuan won 5th place, 13th place and 15th place respectively.
“It is a testament to the dedication of Coach Duzyol to have three students place in the top five finalists at the state competition where they competed against the best math minds from every chapter in Georgia,” said Fulton Science Academy Principal, Kenan Sener.
Coach Duzyol confirmed the intense competition, commenting, “Every year, the state tournament gets more rigorous and competition questions become more challenging, and yet we have seven students qualified to state and five of them placed in top fifteen! It’s quite exciting! Compared to last year we exponentially increased our performance by actively engaging in series of collaborative workshops during summer break, thanksgiving break, winter break, every weekend, and week days which showed the students’ very serious dedication to the tournament.”
Duzyol continued, “I could not be more proud of our students. In addition to juggling very demanding academic schedules, they still manage to spend dozens of hours in workshops preparing. It is such an inspiration to guide them and work together with them; their shared love of math and the positive manner in which they encourage one another is really something special.”
Team members were all thrilled to see how much they have accomplished thus far. “We definitely went into this state competition with our sights set on advancing to nationals,” said seventh grader, Richard Yu, FSA Math team member and Georgia State’s first place winner. “We competed against approximately best 200 mathletes of Georgia qualified to State level so it was critical for us to stay focused, calm, and to hammer away at each problem methodically.
Congratulations to our champions and their coach Mrs. Duzyol! Good Luck to Georgia MATHCOUNTS Team at the Nationals in May, in Washington DC!!