Math Club Brings in Record Attendance at Annual Middle School Math Competition

THIJS WITTINK/DEERFIELD SCROLL

On April 25, the Deerfield Math Competition brought together 87 middle school students from the Eaglebrook School, Berkshire Academy, Cardigan Mountain School, the Bement School, The Academy at Charlemont, JFK Middle School, and Lesley Ellis School to participate in a multi-round math competition organized by students from the Deerfield Math Club.

This year’s record-breaking participant turnout marked a milestone for the event since its creation in 2017. Math Teacher and Faculty Advisor for the Deerfield Math Club Forest Reid explained that preparations for the competition began months in advance. Members of the Math Club divided responsibilities across multiple roles. These roles included problem writing, website management, and logistics. “Problem writing is the core of it, and it is really, really hard,” said Mr. Reid. He also noted that the logistics aspect was a “huge undertaking” and a “big organizational task.”

According to Mr. Reid, the event was inspired by students who participated in the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, a student-run competition for high schoolers. The DMC follows a similar structure, featuring multiple rounds, including an Individual Round, a team-based “Guts Round,” and a final Countdown Round, newly added to this year’s competition procedure. “I think we could do some more of this format in the future,” said DMC Student Logistics Director Jewel Suh ’28.

Members of the Math Club created original problems for the competition since February. The group collaborated during club meetings to review proposed problems and work through them to create a coherent answer key. “Each problem writer can choose their category, but we try to keep the number of problems balanced across all categories,” said DMC Student Director Torge Blunck ’27.

According to Mr. Reid, writing competition-level questions differs from preparing class assessments. “It’s not like writing a math test for a class,” he explained, “You want some [problems] that almost everybody gets…and some that almost nobody gets, because then you wouldn’t have a winner.”

The Individual Round required students to solve eight problems independently within 45 minutes. The Guts Round, modeled after the format used by HMMT, required teams to work together, solve problems in sets, and submit answers sequentially with scores displayed in real time. 

Instead of having two separate individual rounds as in previous competitions, the final Countdown Round, modeled after another competition called MATHCOUNTS, was used to determine the individual winner. A bracket-style system was used to mark the advancement of winners through each matchup based on speed and accuracy.

Reflecting on the effectiveness of the new format, Blunck said, “We thought it was an exciting finish to the day, so we plan to keep this change in future years.”

Aside from problem writing, other members of the Math Club worked on organizing the competition’s logistics. The team coordinated with schools, managed registrations, and compiled competition materials. During the competition, the team also managed a set of spreadsheets to track scores, compile results, and generate rankings across rounds. 

For students thinking about joining the DMC team, Suh suggested, “DMC is a good opportunity to not only work on your math, but also your leadership skills…It’s a really fun time; it’s a good group of people.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Reid said future improvements will likely focus on refining logistical systems, such as keeping different spreadsheets to gather results faster. He also noted ongoing efforts to streamline communication with participating schools and reduce the amount of last-minute adjustments during the event. “I think we had a really nice setup this year, and there’s always a little refinement that can happen,” he said.