Comment by SJC_Hacker
4 days ago
Are you in the US? Have you heard of the AMC (used to be AHMSE) and the AIME? Those are the feeders to the IMO.
If your school had a math team and you were on it, would be surprised if you didn't hear of it
You may not have heard of the IMO because no one in school district, possibly even state got in. It is extremely selective (like 20 students in the entire country)
I’m in the US but this was a while back, in the south. It was a highly ranked school and ended up producing lots of PhDs, but many of the families were blue collar and so there just wasn’t any awareness of things like this.
I'm curious on your response to GP's question. Have you heard of AHSME, AMC, or AIME?
Nobody mentioned them in high school (1997) until I heard of them online and got my school to participate. 30 kids took the AHSME. Only one qualified for the AIME. And nobody qualified for IMO (though I tell myself I was close).
I believe the 1 in a million number.
Never heard of those either. And I took the highest level math courses offered. The only competition I can remember is participating in is Academic Decathlon.