The Advantage Testing Foundation Math Prize for Girls, often referred to as The Math Prize for Girls, is an annual

mathematics competition Mathematics competitions or mathematical olympiads are competitive events where participants complete a math test. These tests may require multiple choice or numeric answers, or a detailed written solution or proof. International mathematics compe ...

open to female high school students from the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

. The competition offers the world’s largest single monetary math prize in a math contest for young women. In 2017, the First-Place prize was $46,000 (split equally amongst the three-way tie for first) with another $9,000 divided among the remaining finalists. Girls may win a maximum of $100,000 by participating in the competition over multiple years. Organized each year by the

Advantage Testing Foundation The Advantage Testing Foundation is an American not-for-profit educational organization based in New York City. Founded in 2007 by Arun Alagappan, the 501(c) public charity seeks to expand academic and professional opportunities for students of e ...

, the competition is considered to be the preeminent female math competition for young women in North America. The single-day annual contest is open to female high-school students in 12th grade or below, from the

and

who have attained a qualifying score on the

American Mathematics Competitions The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) are the first of a series of competitions in secondary school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The selection process takes place over th ...

Exams, specifically the

AMC 10 The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) are the first of a series of competitions in secondary school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The selection process takes place over th ...

AMC 12 The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) are the first of a series of competitions in secondary school mathematics that determine the United States team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). The selection process takes place over th ...

given in February each year. Up to 300 participants are then selected each year for the competition. Participants must complete 20 short-answer problems in

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

algebra Algebra () is one of the areas of mathematics, broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathem ...

trigonometry Trigonometry () is a branch of mathematics that studies relationships between side lengths and angles of triangles. The field emerged in the Hellenistic world during the 3rd century BC from applications of geometry to astronomical studies. ...

, and other math topics in 150 minutes. The exams are then reviewed by a panel of judges, who award cash prizes to the top-scoring participants.

History

The competition was founded in 2009 by

Arun Alagappan Arun Alagappan is an American businessman. He is the founder and president of Advantage Testing Foundation, Advantage Testing, Inc., a scholastic test preparation and tutoring agency. Early life and education Alagappan was raised in Queens, N ...

and Dr. Ravi Boppana in an effort to inspire the next generation of

female mathematicians This is a list of women who have made noteworthy contributions to or achievements in mathematics. These include mathematical research, mathematics education, the history and philosophy of mathematics, public outreach, and mathematics contests. ...

and create a community of young women who share a passion for math. Boppana, the competition’s cofounder and Director, said in a statement that "the Math Prize was created to debunk gender stereotypes, and to support young women who see higher-level mathematics as a pursuit that is challenging, fun, and incredibly rewarding.” The first two years of the competition were held at NYU, and since 2011, the competition has been held annually at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most ...

Winners

The annual first-place winners of The Math Prize for Girls are listed in the table below: The competition was not held in 2020 or 2021 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

. Additionally, the Math Prize for Girls awards Youth Prize to the highest scoring student in grade 9 or below.

Advisory board

As of 2017, the competition's Board of Advisors has the following members: * Ravi Boppana, Director of Mathematics at ''Advantage Testing, Inc.'' *

Ioana Dumitriu Ioana Dumitriu (born July 6, 1976) is a Romanian-American mathematician who works as a professor of mathematics at the University of California, San Diego.University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

Maria Klawe Maria Margaret Klawe ( ; born 1951) is a computer scientist and the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College (since July 1, 2006). Born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of En ...

, President of

Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private college in Claremont, California, focused on science and engineering. It is part of the Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds and resources. The college enrolls 902 undergraduate students ...

Richard Rusczyk Richard Rusczyk ( or ; ; born September 21, 1971) is the founder and chief executive officer of Art of Problem Solving Inc. (as well as the website, which serves as a mathematics forum and place to hold online classes) and a co-author of the Ar ...

, Founder of ''Art of Problem Solving, Inc''. and Director of the USA Mathematical Talent Search *

Michael Sipser Michael Fredric Sipser (born September 17, 1954) is an American theoretical computer scientist who has made early contributions to computational complexity theory. He is a professor of applied mathematics and was the Dean of Science at the Massa ...

, Professor of

Applied Mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemat ...

and Dean of Science at

Gigliola Staffilani Gigliola Staffilani (born March 24, 1966) is an Italian-American mathematician who works as the Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

, the ''Abby Rockefeller Mauze'' Professor of Mathematics at

* Lauren Williams, Professor of mathematics at the

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

* Joseph Woo *

Melanie Wood Melanie Matchett Wood (born 1981) is an American mathematician at Harvard University who was the first woman to qualify for the U.S. International Mathematical Olympiad Team. She completed her PhD in 2009 at Princeton University (under Manjul Bha ...

, Professor of mathematics at the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://mathprize.atfoundation.org/ Mathematics competitions Educational foundations in the United States Recurring events established in 2009 Women in mathematics