Central Academy is a Mathematics Hothouse

Central Academy is home to some of the nation's top math students.

If mathematicians were vegetation then Central Academy would be a hothouse. Again this spring, indeed throughout this year, Central Academy students sprouted up at or near the top in local, regional and national math competitions in impressive numbers (pun intended).

Central Academy also happens to have once again received the highest score on the Iowa AP Index, conducted by the Belin-Blank Center at the University of Iowa.

Highlights of some of the mathematics accomplishments by students during the 2011-12 school year include:

• Granger Carty was one of only 10 out of 35,000 students to earn a perfect score on the American Mathematics Contest (AMC) 10 exam.  The AMC is the primary national high school math competition.
• Eric Chen was recognized as one of the top high school mathematicians in the country by the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) and selected to participate in their Math Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP). He now joins an elite group of high school mathematicians who have attended MOSP for multiple years.
• Central students swept the top spots in the state on both the AMC 10 and AMC 12, making Central Academy the state champion at both levels in contests sponsored by the MAA. Additionally, the AMC 10 team was a regional champion while the AMC 12 team placed third in the nine-state region. Central’s AMC 10 team was comprised of 10th graders Carty, Patrick Hiatt and Max Pilcher. The AMC 12 team was 11th graders Chen and Luke Sheeley and 12th grader Sarah Liu.
• A team of Central Academy students took 7th place in the 2012 Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest (CPSC), a national mathematics contest administered by National Assessment & Testing.
• 14 of Iowa’s 30 qualifiers for the American Invitational Mathematics Exam (AIME) were Central Academy students. The honorees are seniors Jack Bequeaith, Corey Grief, Sarah Liu, Matt Mackay, Megan Mansfield, Alisha Smith and Luchang Wang; juniors Chen, Danny Deeter and Luke Sheeley; and sophomores Carty, Patrick Hiatt, Max Pilcher and Ryan Utke.
• Thirty-eight Central Academy students competed in the 57th Annual Merten Hasse Mathematics Competition at the University of South Dakota, with four students – Nathan Rider, Alex Lopez, Zach Lin, and Stephen Meyer – earning top honors in their categories.
• A team consisting of Edel Aron, Carty, Chen, Mansfield and Wang tied for 8th in the nation in the American Regional Mathematics League (ARML) Local competition.  Central students also competed against topflight teams from around the nation throughout the school year in several proof-based competitions at a level of mathematics not typically accessed by high school students. Teams from Central finished 12th in both Mandelbrot Team Play and the ARML Power competition.

Speaking of proof-based, a thorough analysis of the math program at Central Academy leads inescapably to the conclusion that it’s one of the best college prep environments anywhere. The evidence just keeps growing.