Wu takes second place in national math competition

Sophomore Catherine Wu proved she is one of top female mathletes in the nation when she initially tied for first place in annual Math Prize for Girls competition, which took place on Sept. 10 at MIT in Cambridge, Mass. Wu was eventually awarded second place because of a tiebreaker.

Other SHS contestants included seniors Candace Chiang, Karena Chow, and Katherine Sun.

This competition featured 274 girls from across the U.S. and Canada, all of whom qualified by taking the AMC 10/12 exam in February. The Advantage Testing Foundation, which sponsors Math Prize for Girls, calls it the largest monetary math contest for girls in the world.

Wu has taken the Math Prize four times as of this competition, placing fourth in 2014 and seventh in 2015.

“Doing well involves a lot of luck, so I guess that I got lucky this year,” Wu said, referring to her two mistakes within a problem, which ended up cancelling each other out and giving her the right answer.

As a result of her second-place finish, she won $20,500 in scholarship funds.

Wu said she takes this achievement as inspiration to further pursue her interests in math and hopes to qualify for the four-girl U.S. team that will compete at the European Girls Math Olympiad in early April. To do so, Wu needs to score among the top four girls in the nation during the December and January  Team Selection Tests.

This summer she also qualified to the Math Olympiad Summer Program, an honor given only to the top 60 mathletes in the nation. In addition, Wu placed among the top 12 scorers in the 2016 USAJMO, earning the title of JMO winner.

“You can’t be good at anything without hard work,” Wu said. “Overall, I’m very happy with the Math Prize results.”