Fairfax Teen Scores $7,500 Scholarship At Math Competition In DC

FAIRFAX, VA — Calvin Wang, a 13-year-old eighth grader from Frost Middle School in Fairfax, began participating in math competitions around third grade. However, it wasn't until he was in middle school that he was able to join the school math club.

"In February, I actually also qualified for MATHCOUNTS Nationals," he said. "That was super exciting, because I wasn't expecting that. I placed 22nd in national competition last year."

Although Wang enjoyed competing in nationals, it was online event and he would've liked to meet some of the competitors in person.

"This year, it was even better because I got to meet all my friends I talked to online for a very long time," he said. "I got to meet them in person, so that was a good experience."

Wang recently had the chance to represent Virginia in the 2022 Raytheon Technologies MATHCOUNTS Competition in Washington, D.C. The May 7 event was sponsored by Raytheon Technologies.

MATHCOUNTS competitions typically involve problems that are more in depth than those contained in a normal math homework or test, according to Wang.

"The idea is that you have to use your intuition to think about how you should solve the problem," he said. "Instead of basically using the formula to solve it, you would actually just think about which formulas you should apply to solve the problem."

Each MATHCOUNTS competition is divided into two rounds. Since it is a competition, speed plays a factor in solving the problems. In the first or "sprint" round, competitors have to solve 30 problems in 40 minutes. The second or "target" round contains four sets of problems. Competitors have six minutes to solve the two problems contained in each set.

Allan Yuan, an eighth grader from Hoover, Alabama came out on top, defeating the 223 other competitors from around the country. He received the $20,000 Donald G. Weinert College Scholarship and a trip to the U.S. Space Camp.

Although he didn't win the top prize, Wang earned a $7,500 scholarship by being the Countdown Round Runner-Up.

While students who compete in spelling bees can memorize word lists, practicing to improve your math skills is a little more complicated, according to Wang.

"Sometimes you can just find a formula and just memorize and suddenly you're slightly better at math," he said. "But usually it just comes from you solving problems until you just build intuition for a concept and you see its connections easier."

Wang began to exhibit math proficiency at an early age and he credits his elementary school teachers for finding classes and opportunities that would help improve his skills.

While Wang's not sure if it's a true story, his mother told him that when he was upset one day in kindergarten, a teacher gave him a math problem, which stopped him from crying.

"That's when they just kind of figured out that I am interested in math, and I do believe it's true," he said.

Next year, Wang will be a freshman at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria. He hasn't decided what he'll study when he gets to college but figures it probably will be something that involves math.