This year, senior Suchakree Chueleucha, a Thai Scholar, qualified for the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO), one of fewer than 250 students nationally.

Participating in the USAMO is invitation only, and qualification is a long and difficult process. Each year, the Mathematical Association of America runs the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) in two variants: the AMC 10 for grades nine and ten and the AMC 12 for grades eleven and twelve. In 2017, more than 68,000 students participated in the AMC 12 alone.

Of the tens of thousands of participants, only about 5% — 4,462 in 2017 — make it to the next level of competition, the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME). The AIME is a 15-question, 3-hour test that covers high-level algebra, geometry and number theory. Finally the top scorers on the AIME, usually around 250, are selected to take the USAMO.