PROMYS (Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists)

Descriptions:

PROMYS is a highly regarded program that aims to immerse students in the creativity of pure mathematics. This program doesn’t emphasize memorizing formulas, but asks students to explore fundamental mathematical ideas and formulate conjectures with justified reasoning. The program is centered on Number Theory, but students can also expose themselves to a wider range of topics through advanced seminars, mini-courses, lectures, research, and informal discussions.

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Basic informations:

  • Fee: $8,000

  • Deadline for application: End of February, Beginning of March

  • Acceptance rate: around 10-13% (maybe inaccurate as no formal data are published), 60 first year students and 20 returning students

  • Age: 14-18 years old, finished grade 9 curriculum (or equivalent)

  • Sessions: 

  • Duration: 6 weeks

  • Location: At Boston University campus. 

Other informations:

  • Each year, approximately 25 college undergraduate mathematics majors are hired to mentor students in the PROMYS high school program.

  • Students will majorly explore Number Theory and work with the ideas involving integers, prime numbers, congruences, modular arithmetic, and related proof questions.

    • Each weekday starts with a Number Theory lecture followed by some optional lectures students can choose to attend. For the rest of the day, students spend most of the time completing question sets from the lecture independently or with other peers.

    • The question sets will help students get familiar with the concepts, then conduct their own numerical experiments, discover patterns, and formulate conjectures. During the process, students will hopefully move on to solving singular

    • problems to understand how Number Theory works in depth.

    • Then students might receive guidance from their mentor (each mentor in charge of 3-4 students) and construct clearer and more accurate proofs.

    • Problem set solutions

    • High school transcript or report card

    • Online application form

    • Letter of recommendation

    • Financial aid application

    • Test scores

    • Financial aid form (if applicable)

Official
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