Oak Hill Academy achieves a NJ Private School First at MathCounts
MathCounts, a national mathematics competition sponsored by the National Society of Professional Engineers and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has served millions of middle school students since 1984. On Thursday, February 17, a group of students from Oak Hill Academy, Lincroft, competed in the annual MathCounts Tri-County Competition. Oak Hill competed against public, private and parochial students in Middlesex, Monmouth and Union Counties. The Regional coordinator stated a few years ago that this is one of the most difficult regions in the entire state of New Jersey.
The competition consists of three rounds. The first round is a 30-question test covering every strand of mathematics. Every question is a word problem with increasing difficulty. The second round consists of four sets of two high-level word problems. The students are given two problems at a time and have six minutes in which to complete them. This is exceedingly stressful because once the six minutes is up, the students cannot return to a prior set of questions! The last round is completed as a four-person team. The team is given 10 very challenging questions with 20 minutes in which to solve them. Successful completion of this round requires leadership and teamwork.
Representing Oak Hill Academy in this rigorous competition were:
Maya Bhasin, Michael Engle, Harry Fan (team member), Buddy Levy, Ariana Li, Vincent Li (team member), Leela Kumar, David Seetoo, Annabel Sparano (team captain), Audrey Wei, Brian Xu and Tylor Yang (team member).
This year in addition to being the top private school in the region, one of Oak Hill’s students, 8th grader, Harry Fan, placed first out of 174 mathletes in the tri-county. Placing first gives Harry an automatic spot in the State MathCounts competition scheduled for Thursday, March 31. This is the first time anyone from a private school in this region has advanced to the state. Harry prepared tirelessly for the Regional competition and has increased his intensity of preparation for the upcoming State competition while still keeping abreast of his normal academic requirements in school.
Congratulations to Coach Mrs. Rita Cotterell and her team of mathletes!
Oak Hill Academy 
