Oak Hill Academy has the Top Mathlete in MathCounts again!

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 Saturday, February 11, a group of students from Oak Hill Academy, Lincroft, competed in the annual MathCounts Tri-County Competition held at Union College.  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.

Congratulations to the 7^th and 8^th grade math team whose overall performance was nothing short of amazing! Our team of Rebel Mondschein, David Seetoo, Grace Zheng and Team Captain, Michael Engle scored so high that OHA earned the trophy for Most Improved School! In addition, for the 15^th consecutive year, OHA was the top private school in the region. This is the second year in a row that one of Oak Hill’s students, 6^th grader, Grace Zheng, placed first out of over 200 other mathletes in the tri-county.  Placing first gives Grace an automatic spot in the State MathCounts competition scheduled for Thursday, March 11. This is only the second time anyone from a private school in this region has advanced to the state after Harry Fan was the first to go it last year.  

Rounding out the team from Oak Hill Academy in this rigorous competition were: Abby Jain, Ariana Li, Aria Medoza, Jack Pellegrini, Sahaana Shah, Andie Sparano, Amir Waldman, and Audrey Wei.