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Does anyone have insight of how Dulles and Clements do so good. I'm really interested in hearing the pedagogy going on over there, any details at all would be appreciated.

My coach keeps saying they have been doing UIL since elementary.

It's likely a combination of several things. I've never spoken to anyone from there, unfortunately, but I do know a few things about them.

I know that the kids down there have many resources in math and science. My friends who did TMSCA back in middle school told me that there was always this one school (or two, I can't remember) named something like "The Colony" that would dominate the State competition. They start their kids in advanced math early, through harder contests than TMSCA, such as MATHCOUNTS. I know this because one day, I was reading articles on AoPS, and came across this article:

http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Reso ... mathcounts

I learned that Bobby Shen was a MATHCOUNTS champion in middle school, and several other kids from Sugar Land (Dulles/Clements) have come from those middle schools and continued being great at math and science competitions over the past few years. I haven't looked very deep into it, but I am 100% sure that many of the really good Dulles/Clements people have gone through the amazing MATHCOUNTS program down in Sugar Land and have emerged ready from competitions of the AMC series and others. Not all of them have been the great competitor that Bobby Shen has been, but many competed on his team and others still are doing well in math competitions today.

I made AIME this year (hooray) after learning about it last year. I saw this year's AMC 12B results and as my coach scrolled through them, I saw many familiar names from Sugar Land through UIL that qualified as well. By preparing them in middle school through MATHCOUNTS, the coaches and parents down there have created a mass of students that are ready for competitions like these, and can easily go in and dominate UIL and TMSCA. UIL is child's play to many of them, and they're going to AIME, USAMO, and even in Bobby's case, IMO, an incredibly impressive accomplishment.

It's not only that they've done UIL since elementary; they've been exposed to so much more rigorous and deep math concepts that UIL is covering just the basics for many of them. Sure, they have to practice, for getting experience in the contests, learning NS tricks, calculator number crunchers, etc. But with the background that they already have, it's much easier than going in cold without that background. These kids can do UIL and TMSCA with ease; they qualify for AIME and USAMO, and looking at the USAPHO semifinalist qualifiers, I saw a few of them there as well (I didn't really know much about the USAPHO, or any associated Olympiads really, until recently, besides USAMO. I wish I could've taken the test to see where I would have been.) I'm sure they do the USA Biology Olympiad (I think Bobby made this too?), Chemistry, Physics, you name it. They're good all over the place. It's pretty amazing the kinds of things they do. These kids also do competitions like Intel and Siemens, and are conducting serious research projects (and advancing high in these competitions.) UIL is not the only thing they do.

If you look at the article I linked to, you'll see that the date at the top says 2005, the year in which the Sugar Land team won State in MATHCOUNTS. I'm assuming that the program did not start too long before that. Now look at the Resulter: http://www.texasmath.org/Resulter.html

If you look at NS/MA/CA at 2005, I don't think you'll see anyone from Dulles/Clements. Around 2007 or so, when that 2005 team began to enter UIL, you start seeing Dulles and Clements showing up, and legends such as Mark Zhang and Kevin Chen emerge. Bobby Shen follows soon after. After they started that MATHCOUNTS program, the Sugar Land dynasty began and became what it is today.

I don't know exactly how I learned these things, but I guess after a while I began to slowly figure things out and connect the dots, and now I know why they have such a great program. It's because they're all Asian (kidding.) They've got a big network of coaches, peers, and parents ready to develop their kids from a young age and produce leaders in math, science, and technology in high school, college, and beyond. They've definitely got funding and much support from all around. Unfortunately, most schools and areas don't have these things (like mine) so we aren't always given these opportunities.

Although I hadn't known much about competitions throughout my life, I'm glad I at least got to do UIL. After learning about the forum I began to do well here, and now I'm starting to get into AIME and such. I think it's probably a bit too late for me in my high school math career to go to USAMO, and I won't be able to participate in Intel or Siemens. However, I'm glad I've been able to do UIL, at least. I think many of the people on here are the same way, and UIL has given them an introduction to some sort of advanced math and science. We might not have the resources that Dulles and Clements do, but we can still produce good students, given they are willing enough to put in the effort.

nsguy is absolutely right when he mentions their prior exposure to MATHCOUNTS and other top tier mathematics competitions. I attribute my UIL Mathematics scores solely to experiences in MATHCOUNTS from middle school. The hardest portion on the Calculator and Mathematics UIL tests for most people are those problem solving questions since that is a skill one cannot learn in a high school classroom. MATHCOUNTS, AMC, etc. have helped students learn those skills which not only help in answering questions, but also in speed due to MATHCOUNT's Sprint and Countdown rounds.

When you analyze the students that win UIL or get high scores, you will see almost all of them are excelling in AMC and AIME (sadly, this is not true for me). In my opinion, it is not what the student is being taught by his UIL coach, but what the student wants to achieve through other mathematics contests that have defined success for schools like Dulles and Clements.

I wish I had done MATHCOUNTS. My middle school had no academic competitions whatsoever, little funding, no motivated students, and nobody really excelled academically. It was dominated by minorities (not that minorities cannot succeed), and I knew nobody who ever participated in math competitions. Luckily I came to SEM where I could enter an at least somewhat rigorous math and science curriculum, and got an introduction to UIL. We didn't have a particularly strong UIL program (especially in math, last year was the first year anyone from SEM made State in a math event to my knowledge, at least in recent history.) Now that I've made it to State with my background, I know that MATHCOUNTS and other competitions are not necessary to become good at these competitions. However, I know that it definitely helps, and I wonder where I could've been if I had grown up in Sugar Land. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Adeesh, I didn't know you did MATHCOUNTS in middle school. I wonder how many other people on here have done it.

I actually did it back in Kansas (where I moved from). Our team won the state competition, but sadly, I would always mess up and be one question away from placing in countdown round individually. Even though I may not have been that good at it, the skills one can learn from that can be used in a multitude of places (like UIL).

@nsguy: I suggest you try and start a MATHCOUNTS program at your local middle school. I think you could be a great coach and mentor for it, while introducing more students to mathematics and problem solving!

Thanks for the informative post nsguy.

I understand what you're saying about the resources. UIL was the first competition I found out about, and that was barely last year in my junior year. Prior to that I didn't even have a faint idea as to math beyond algebra. By the time I found out about other competitions, like the AMC contest earlier this year, I didn't have enough time to absorb the breadth of the material; ended up barely missing AIME. Plus the region I live in lacks math-motivated students, or parents who are willing to put that much time and effort in, too much hispanics, not enough asians here. :p

Must be Mathcounts then, see this, many Sugar Land UIL top kids were mathcounts winners at one time:

http://www.beestar.org/news/news090328.jsp

http://www.beestar.org/news/news090508.jsp

http://www.beestar.org/news/news100412.jsp

Bobby Shen, Mitchell Hwang, Lilly Shen, Angie Rao, Aditya Jain, etc etc

Lol man, don't want to be considered a stalker or anything, just trying to understand how to build up a really successful program.

Maybe it's just the competition of Clements that brings out the best in Dulles?