Small Get-together Friday by Matt McGann '00
An informal reception for HMMT participants and others visiting Boston on Friday.
While we’re still quite busy with selection, tomorrow (Friday) I’ll have a small reception for any students visiting MIT. The reception will be tomorrow (Friday) at from 5-7pm in Stata Center room 32-155.
I know that there will be many students around tomorrow for several reasons, including the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament (HMMT), visiting other schools, and visiting MIT on what is a vacation week for some students across the country. And since I’ll be sequestered with applications throughout the weekend (and hence won’t be able to informally meet with folks otherwise or attend HMMT), I want to be able to take some time to see the MIT Class of 2010 members, parents, coaches, and prospective MIT students who are around.
The reception won’t be anything terribly formal; I’ve just reserved a room, and I’ll get some delicious cannoli and Italian cookies from Modern Pastry in Boston’s North End. Some of the student bloggers may join me as well. For those of you in from out of town, I’ll be happy to provide some good restaurant recommendations ;)
If you’re on campus tomorrow, I hope you’ll swing by!
no can do, ive got these bloody EXAMS!!!
actually, exams aren’t all that bad. they afford me the opportunity to prove i know everything i’ve been taught. of course, screwing up sucks… plus i like to finish early and watch other ppl’s reactions as they finish :D
i’ve only aced a few exams, actually. algebra I (8th grade) twice, english (8th) once, ancient world history (9th) thrice, algebra II/trig (9th) once, honors english (10th) once, ap chemistry (11th) once, ap calculus bc (11th) once, ap government (12th) and ap bio (12th) once each (and hopefully twice each by next week’s end).
i mightve forgotten some, but hey, who honestly keeps track??
im sure lots of u guys have aced high school exams. ur favorites??
hehe, a good friend of mine is competing in the HMMT. I wish I could go, but I am busy building robots and I also just met a girl in my calc 3 class. =D
Matt, I’ll see you there! =)
Hi any you guys try the HMMT problems, some are really cute and hard. How many point do you get?
So the HMMT is open to every school in US, this mean that some student have to move quite far for the contest.
Any of you participated the IMO last year. last year the USA team did pretty well, 4 gold and 2 silver. If I does not make a mistake there are 4 round: AMC, AIME, USAMO,the Team selection contest. Long way for sure.
Oh, what time is the contest?
Awesome. 50 min for 10 problems. Some are especially hard.
lol @ bryan: “I also just met a girl….”
chicks before math, is that how it is now? lol :D
ok, well I lied a little. I met her at the beginning of the semester in calc 3. The teacher is very boring and its even harder to listen to him because I had to sit through diff eq with him last semester. My eyes wander and I usually end up just looking at the girl haha. The first night I saw her I thought I would never even get enough courage to talk to her… now we are sorta dating. =D There is nothing better than meeting a girl in math class haha. Anyway, how did you guys do for the AMC? I got a 123 on the AMCB, but I didnt take the A. I really kinda screwed up on the AIME last year, but I hear that this year they are inviting a lot more people to the USAMO. So I got the girl… now the question is if I can do the math.
Siddhartha you should know that meeting girls is an important concept of math.
After all “I know my calculus, you plus me equals us.”
Can U tell me the difference between AMCA and AMCB, I used to think there is only one AMC only.
What is the Havard- MIT Math tournament, an undergraduate competition or something sile that ? There are not such event where I live.
To Siddharth
Wow Siddharth, so impressive the results you ve got. Sorry but I am not sure from your name that you are a guy or a girl. (If a girl, nice to meet you ^ ^). In my country there are no such extra course , but the Calculus and Algebra are taught right at the High school. We was also taught Combinatorics and Number Theory.
Which field of Maths are U interested in?
Did you took part in AMC, AIME or such exams?
ooooh nice, lol!
im going to try to use that one day :D
and its going in my AIM profile, skshah2006. (i have an ever-growing list of nerdy pickup lines, updated as i run into more, and more, and more)
i actually met this one indian girl at the virginia regional science bowl this feb. she was, i thought, reasonably pretty, but my friend chris thought she was straight-up HOT. she just wasn’t super-hot, is all i was saying. anyway, she looked like a sweet girl, but i was already dying over this other girl (NOT at the va reg. sci bowl). so, i decided to mess around w/ her a bit. after conferring w/ my science bowl team, i was able to piece together this pickup spiel: hi, im siddharth shah, im incapacitated by ur captivating charm. would u like some raisins?
yeah, it was not one of my finer moments. she really was a sweet girl, and i felt like a jerk after doing it, she probably really did like me, she had been almost blatantly checking me out earlier. it’s too bad, b/c now i dont really like the girl that i had liked at the time of the sci bowl. so… i may very well have passed up quite a decent opportunity.
i called it my adventure in nerd love. it was a disaster.
no, my results weren’t impressive was my point, lol. i couldve done better, but thats how most things are for me in school ;D
im a guy, but its still nice to meet u too :D
i typically like all math, but im going for computer engineering. yeah, i did do the amc 12 this year, im kind of curious about the results. i dont think i did so well, i left several blank that i really did know how to do. i finished in 30 minutes and doodled the rest of the time :(
Gee, Siddarth, this is the nerdiest pickup line I’ve ever thought of:
Newton was romantic. After all, when kissing, we obey his third law. You kiss me = I kiss you. (-_-“)
Eric, that pick up line is a new one. lol
@ siddharth
I took the amc 12 as well. I thought I had the wrong test when the first question was about counting money… I had to reread that question at least three times to be sure lol But I enjoyed the test, it was fair. I did leave a few blanks here and there.
Hah, I did not read everything, the rule and the problems are all to be found by the link. Funny event.
I ve just seen some of the problems. Cute ones.
I believe there is amc 12a and amc 12b, my friend took amc 12b. I am not sure which one is easier though…
Cute ones?
I love how this has turned into a girls/math/AMC discussion
Interesting stories everyone 
It’s great that you’re making time for prospective students, Matt 
Have fun! And it’s a shame u won’t be able to attend the tournament ;P I’m sure it’d be pretty interesting to watch 
Good Luck with applications!
Good luck to all applicants!
Abdulaziz (Aziz) Albahar
I’ll stop by, even if I’m NOT a blogger! Heh, see you there
just got my amc12 scores back, and i have to say, meh. i only got a 102… thats what i get for feeling ill that day and wasting all the time after 30 mins. i looked back at some of the problems and boy, i really couldve done a lot better. i think i wouldve had ~125 if i’d actually concentrated :D
oh well. what matters is that i now take aime, and OWN at it :D
ur scores, anybody?? (and pls try not to rub it in my face :D)
oh, and congrats on the girl, brian. got pics?? j/k :D
siddharth, how did you get your amc 12 scores back?
When I took the AIME I had no idea what I was doing… =p
oh eric, u are SUCH a romantic! aaahahaha. im sure u’ll get lots of girls w/ that line :D
counting money? i dont remember that far back…
but hey, i learned that ppl can take the AMC12A and AMC12B in the same year, even after seeing the solutions to the 12A, and the 12B uses on questions from the 12A. so i guess getting a great score on the 12B really isnt that tough… altho i’ve never taken it, so i dont know. i think i landed around a 102 on the amc12. its pretty poor, but i was sick that day, and i just didnt feel like doing it anyway. like i said, i tried for a/b 30 mins, then called it quits :D
my ex-honors-precal, ex-algebra-I, current-study-hall teacher told me. she’s the math department chair or something. here’s how things happened:
i walk into study hall, right on time as usual (bell ringing in the background), and she goes, sidd, i just got back the amc scores. i was like, really? thats cool. do u know what i got? then she says, yeah, i have good news and bad news. and i was like, damn, bad news SUCKS! but out loud i said nothing, just waited. the news would come. and it did: she says, “the good news is that u made it to the AIME. the bad news is u have to sit through a three-hour exam.” so i was like, “yeah, that IS bad news.” but yeah, then she told me my exact score, and i didnt have the presence of mind to ask about anybody else. then she goes, congratulations, and im like, sure. b/c i really wasnt happy w/ that fool 102. i didnt mean to be mean, but thats how it sounded.
this, gm, is how i got my amc 12 scores back.
i might just guess like crazy on the aime. i looked it up, and every answer is an int between 0 and 999. so, 1000 possibilities. 15 questions means i have 1/1000 * 15 = 3/200 chance of getting one right just by random guessing. 1.5% chance, not bad, i’ll take it :D
i hope my math is right, that’d be really ironic if i screwed it up o_O
rightly stated =)
I am no expert, but I think there are just two test dates. AMC A is the first and AMC B is the second in case you screwed up or couldn’t make the first date. I am not sure, but there may be 2 AIME dates as well.
Its kind of funny because I always had day dreams about meeting a girl in a math class or physics class. Now I just gotta see how things turn out. As far as a pic… that would be a little creepy, but she is very pretty. Thats not all there is to her of course, it only got better once we started to get to know each other. This is all sort of weird to talk about on the MIT message boards.. but I think we can all agree on this:
math+girl=love
Hopefully things will work out with her and I, but just out of curiosity, does anyone know anything about the dating scene at MIT?
Funny how this blog thread is the place for “girls” and “math.”
Every time I look at this thread, I begin to laugh hysterically.
MIT boys are definitely not the reason I applied…
And by the way, according to wikipedia, Newton was a asexual.
Ciao!
Thats for sure! I have been more lucky with maths than with girls. However I still think MIT may be a heaven for dating, specially to everyone interested in math science and technology because we meet ppl with the same interest. I would like to find a beautiful girl interested in electrical engineering, adicted to internet, coffee, and cellphones, and she MUST be a good table tenis player… well i will keep dreaming.
hahahaha this is becoming a dating blog. Matt is gonna kill us.
lol @ c minh, i have ur same kind of problems :D
the perfect score for the amc12 is 150.
brian: yeah i was joking a/b the pic, that WOULD be creepy, lol. and i think i know what u mean: a gril has to be pretty good-looking to get my attention, but once she’s got my attention, there has to be more to her than just her looks or i end up not liking her. and yes, i believe your equation is correct, sir!
yeah, there are two dates for the aime, but you can only take the aime once a year (i.e., you cant take it on both testing dates).
during my upenn interview, the interviewer said, “i can tell ur really mature, sometimes we have problems with some of our applicants being too much in the books and not socially adept enough. but i can see u dont have that problem.” and then right after that, as if to dispel all notions of my maturity, i asked him, “how do the girls look at penn?” and he laughed and was like, “by ivy league standards…. not bad.” and i was like, “how low are ivy league standards?” and he replies, “pretty low”. i just hope he didnt meet his wife at penn :D
so that’s the dating scene at penn. i know nothing of the dating scene at MIT, but seriously, i think i would be willing to give up my frivolous pursuit of girls for four years if i could get a mega-good education like what MIT can offer. of course, AFTER the four years is a different story
gm, EVERY place is the place for “girls” and “math.” here’s the way i see it: 6 billion people on Earth. about half of them female, so make it 3 billion. then cut out the really old and the really young ( or maybe keep the really young
), and ur still looking at about 1.5 billion girls. and the more girls u date, the more u can subtract out of that 1.5 billion. another way to look at it is, well, if i screw up with this girl, there’s still 1.5 billion-1 left!
hahaha, just kidding :D find the right one, then the other 1.5 billion dont matter as much.
yay for mega-massive post right there :(
sorry, guys.
what would be even funnier is if all of us were gay
that would *not* be funny, let alone funniER, and then i really would have to reconsider attending MIT. not that i have anything against gay ppl, but we cant ALL be gay!
altho, admittedly, it WOULD cut down on the competition for girls among the few straight ones of us :D
well siddhartha if the suicide numbers ive seen for MIT are any indication the dating scene must not be very good.
haha hey siddharth whats your s/n?
skshah2006. u on now? b/c god knows i am :D
just to throw this out there, siddhartha did you know you have posted 12 times on this topic? you have nearly a third of the posts!
yessssssss!!!!!!!!! i am the postmaster!!!
lol, that was bad, sorry, but i had to say it :D
Eh, this entire thing has been about girls, math, girls in and doing math, and the dating scene at the nerdiest place on earth.
It can’t get much worse.
I am waiting for the life in the campus. Parents would never know what we do ^^.
Myself I believe that I prefer a girl who is sensitive, gooad at music and art.
But till now I still have not met the right one. Hope to find her at MIT (of course in case I am admitted)
Our high school did not send out midyear grades until February 20th. (The semester ended January 26th.) Is that kind of late? Will it affect a regular decision applicant’s chances for acceptance, given that MIT intends to notified regular applicants in “mid March?” Just curious …
this thread is so much fun to look at
C Minh, I think everyone is waiting for life in campus, that is really exciting! Here in my country students do not live on campus never, not even the first year. An again you are right parents will never know what happen on campus. Good luck to everybody, decision time is close!
Wow! I am very surprised about how easy is to change the subject of a message. Anyway, guys do you know that acording to stats 50% of ppl meet their wife/husband at college!
Like i said, i like this thread… =)
lol @ yasmin, “Newton was a asexual”, and juan, “I have been more lucky with maths than with girls”, and c minh, “Parents would never know what we do”
juan, u play ping-pong?
i love how ppl are posting their desires on here :D
oh, gm, gm, gm…. but yeah, this thread’s hilarious :D
“juan, u play ping-pong?”
Yeah I love ping-pong! Do you play ping-pong too? Does MIT have a ping-pong team?
“i love how ppl are posting their desires on here :D”
Yeah it’s true, but I wanna know what the girls think about dating on MIT
only 1 girl has posted.
I don’t think MIT is such a heaven for dating like that. A girl may take U more time than the Maths. ^^.
oh siddharth, siddharth, siddharth =p
oh gm, gm, gm
to Juan Jhong Chung… make that two ;p
:D
oh (siddharth,)^100 minus ,
LoL :D
I 1-sin(theta) u :D
I x=cos(theta)(1-sin(theta)) you as well.
niiiiice :D
actually, i dont think that works, gm…. it might, but i dont think so, u might have to enlighten me
Fine siddharth, to enlighten you -> I y=sin(theta)(1-sin(theta)) you. =p
hey gm, just yesterday you told me that one sucked…
so you all were talking about amc/aime scores a while back.
and i was wondering if any of you were thinking of telling MIT that you qualified for the AIME.
and if so. how’re you going about it.
thanks.
so i guess im the second girl. and i bet the dating scene is pretty good at mit. a lot of intelligent people + a lot of freedom.
sara, ben/matt (i cant remember who right now) said its too late for updates to make it to committee. besides, qualifying for aime isnt that huge a deal, its acing it that counts :D
anonymous -> chris, i did not say that one sucked… i said try better lol
hey gm, wat is the y=sin(theta)(1-sin(theta)?? it doesnt really look like anything…lol
yeah, we’re collectively stumped :(
either ur too brilliant for us, or u made a mistake :D
brilliant=romantic, thats what i meant… :(
Siddharth… you are too sweet =p Here ya go -> http://web.mit.edu/smaurer/www/blog/051022 shirts/ruth.jpg
At one point I was very tempted to write a comical essay about how I wanted to go to MIT to meet a girl for my supplement stuff. The truth is that I am attracted to smart people. In the end I decided that it was too risky because it have made the wrong impression. I thought it would have been a unique essay though hehe.
wow wow wow! now you use trigonometry to flirt? there are no many girls only 3, and they havent talk about dating so much. Come on! dont be shy, do you expect to meet the love of your life at MIT, girls describe the men of your dreams, maybe i am
j/k.
i dont know why i am not checking the blogs when there is many ppl posting at certain time!, i check it constantly but it is always to late.
Juan Jhong Chung, you are not the only one who checks the blogs lol
oh so you are still here
I guess not anymore
Congratulation on attending AIME. I got a friend who got 133. Any way what is the perfect score. And till now I can not figure out the difference between AMCA and AMCB.
Last year we have only 6 girl in a class of 27, so terrible, that mean Bryan is so lucky meeting the match one in a Maths class.
Last year, when I took the IMO, My test place was beside a very beautiful girl. Half of the test she got out of her place and do something like a ballet (it took every eyes out of the work to watch her). ^^ . You can not have girl and Maths the same time.
Back to Maths, any of you interested in solving HMMT, I think the problems are cool, the solution are very intelligent. There was one problem that took me half an hour to figure out the way.An the time allow to solve each one is 5 min, awesome enough.
Whoever just quoted 2gether is my HERO.
=)
Thanks nate for the clarification lol
Bryan, im thinking the essay on the love life of MIT would have been great I wrote one of my essay on being a pirate.
By the way, if we are all so smart and doing so many things, why have we filled this blog with almost 100 posts?
I vote we try to break 100 right now i think its sitting just below 90.
And for Matt, our heartfelt apologies on turning your blog into a dating site, but thanks for the leeway.
it’s time to change the topic. Lately, in my Vietnam, there was a very succesful business man named Nguyen Trung Ha wrote something about the role of Maths in this world. Though he used to be a Math specializer (He won the Bronze medal in IMO Romania 1978, and he study Maths in University), he now say that Maths is unecessary and it is a waste of talented people.
I will translate here some of his idea so that we can argue with each other.
( sorry if my translation is not very good)
1) All that mathematicians and math learner do is to himself think out a problem, himself solve it and himself Bravo. In general learning maths is no thing but a series of “self satisfaction”, “mind masturbation” can bring nothing good to the other. In other words, Maths is not very effective to this world.
2) We must admit that maths are applied to the other field too but the things that they use is like 1+1=2, such normal things not those magnificent, deep, grand result. Nowadays, maths have gone too far.
3) Not many one can understand the works of mathematicians, so they just know together, bravo each other. Mr X say that the work of mr Y is a big step, can solve the problems, has deep meaning… The other one don’t understand anything but also bravo.
4)Maths is just like the game of jumping high. You try to jump higher, higher and higher, no real meaning except for the mind satisfaction.
5) the professors who teach maths of the school, are in fact liars. They try to persuade the best students to go for Maths, an unneccesary science, and this should not be considered contribution.
I want to see your idea. Those words of Mr Nguyen Trung Ha, made many maths specializerague very angry. I remembe that one guy said ” Thales, Pythagore died but their theorems would never die, and NTH will die bringing with him all his fame and money” ^^.
I dont think many of you can understand Vietnamese but give you the link anyway.
http://vietnamnet.vn/giaoduc/2006/02/543335/
This is the paper about education.
hrm a serious change in conversation indeed! informative and insightful post c minh.
Although not important but hey almost reaching that 100 posts… =p
ur right, i CANT understand vietnamese!
I think any one who learn Maths may got some feelings.
I think that my translation is not lively enough.
—
actually C Minh your translation is good, and I am also going to say that I would have to disagree with what this business man said. After all he should know how much math plays a role in his life. All the buildings he has, all the technology he uses, all of that is created through math. Sure most people cant understand it but that doesnt mean it isnt useful, and the people who study math can understand it and teach it to the engineers, and scientists who can use it to create things. Nice topic change makes me think a lot.
I DONT LIKE MATH, YET WHY AM I A MATHEMATICIAN? I THINK I AM GOING TO DARTMOUTH AFTERALL AND STUDY HISTORY! HAVE FUN MY MIT MATH NERDS! HAHA
The 100th post!!
i have nothing important to say, just wanted to grab the spot :D
i would like to dedicate this worthless post to gm. u can split the worthlessness with chris if u’d like :D but i dedicate it to u
lol sorry Juan, I check the blog at random times.
i think we should form our club and name it “ppl desperate, anxious and nervous about admission decision who live in the blogs”
there is more …. who live in the blogs and is every second refreshing the web to see if there is a new message” hahahahahaha j/k
^^
so then do you guys notice the delay between a post and when it shows up as well? or is that just me hehe =P
i do
chris,
you know x=r*cos(theta) and y=r*sin(theta)
plug them in and you get polar equation cardioids =D