The West High Math Club sent 13 students to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri to compete at the National Mathleague Competition. After the long road of qualification from regionals to state to nationals, students finally had the chance to test themselves on a national level. Despite facing tough competition from a host of private and preparatory schools, West emerged victorious by over 40 points. This marks West’s second year of victory at Mathleague Nationals.
Catherine Xu ’26, a long-time participant in math competitions, said that though the problems were “wonky”, she still enjoyed the experience, especially the food. However, she has a quibble with the competition format, “I think they should get rid of Countdown. At this point, it feels like it’s useless, because, for Mathcounts, middle schoolers, they need adrenaline; they have energy. But for high schoolers… I’m so tired I just want to go home and sleep.”
Mathleague mostly follows a traditional math competition format — with an individual, target, team and power question. However, it also incorporates a Countdown round, a fast-paced ladder tournament that tests speed and accuracy over other problem-solving skills. Thus, Countdown rounds are rarely seen outside of middle school competitions and are almost always informal, hence the peculiarity of Mathleague competitions. Although Prabhas Gupta ’28 won the 2023 National Countdown the previous year, West didn’t take first place in Countdown this year.
Four students were invited to compete at the international Mathleague competition, held in early July in Bali, Indonesia.
Individual results:
Aiden Zhang ’27 — 5th place, 9th grade individual
Edward Li ’26 — 2nd place, 10th grade individual and 7th place overall
Catherine Xu ’26 — 4th place, 10th grade individual and 10th place overall
