High School Math Contest

The University of South Carolina hosts a High School Mathematics Contest in the Spring semester every year. All South Carolina high schools are cordially invited to participate.

2025 Contest

The 38^th High School Math Competition is scheduled for Saturday, February 1, 2025

Tentative Schedule

Map of Campus: www.sc.edu/visit/map

8:00 AM to 9:15 AM	Registration in LeConte College, Room 118
9:30 AM to 10:45 AM	Written portion, 75 minutes (Classrooms assigned on day of contest)
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM	Lunch, on campus, Russell House (Greene St and Bull St) provides several options
12:00 AM to 1:00 PM	Special Event, Horseshoe Park.
1:15 AM to 2:15 PM	Team competition, LeConte classrooms, 3 to 12 team members from each school
2:30 AM to 3:15 PM	Single Elimination Tournament, Gambrell Hall Auditorium, the top 16 students from the Written portion
3:30 PM	Awards Ceremony, Gambrell Auditorium

About the contest

Since 1986, the Department of Mathematics of the University of South Carolina has been inviting all interested South Carolina high schools to our exciting events. Our goal is to stimulate interest in mathematics among high school students and to recognize those who exhibit exceptional talent.

The main event is a 75-minute multiple-choice exam with 25 questions—the Individual Test.

For team awards, schools are separated into three divisions. The division assigned to a school is based on the results from the previous three contests. Any school without a presence in any of the last three contests is placed by default in the third division.

Schools participate as a team in our Team Event: a 60-minute open-answer exam. The score in this event is added to the average of the top 3 participants in the Written Exam.

Awards

Individual Awards

The top scorer of the Written Exam receives a medal, a plaque, and $400 cash prize.
The participant obtaining the second place in the Written Exam received a medal, a plaque, and $200 cash prize.
The participant in third place obtains a medal, and $100 cash prize.
Participants in places fourth to sixth receive a medal and $50 cash prize

Team Awards

For team awards, schools are separated into divisions. The top three schools from each division receive trophies.

Result Statistics

Different statistics about the results of all of our different tournaments will be posted online. If you require any additional computation, please let us know.

Spotlight

The High School Math Contest was started in the late 1980's while Colin Bennett was department chair. At that time, Colin suggested to Charles Nicol, an associate professor, that he set up contacts with high schools. As a result, Nicol established a high school math contest which would bring some of the brightest high school students to campus.

The contest was successful from the very beginning, with hundreds of high school students participating and good relations built with the high school math teachers. The department has always organized this event on its own.

Department of Mathematics