Random Math Wins 1st at Caltech-Harvey Mudd Math Competition, Sweeps Up Accolades at Berkeley Math Tournament

PASADENA, Calif., Feb. 2, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On Jan. 21, Random Math Team Red won 1st place at the 2023 Caltech-Harvey Mudd Mathematics Competition, out of more than 40 teams from around the nation. The team consisted of seniors Kavan Doctor, Nilay Mishra, Amol Rama, and Anthony Wang and juniors Advaith Avadhanam and Neel Kolhe.

Founded in 2015, Random Math is a Cupertino-based competitive mathematics learning center focused on using an integrated learning approach to encourage student excellence and a lifelong interest in math and STEM.

The day-long competition consisted of an individual round, as well as a "group" round consisting of a proof-based power round and a computation round, administered simultaneously.

"The test format was unorthodox, and really forced us to split up strategically," Kavan Doctor said. "By dividing our resources, we were able to nearly ace both rounds."

While the team consisted of some of the strongest students nationwide, its members were pleasantly surprised by the win.

"These competitions tend to attract the best and brightest from all around the nation," Neel Kolhe said. "Winning, while always a possibility, felt like an enormous accomplishment."

Additionally, a second Random Math team (Team Blue), won 5th place overall. The team consisted of senior Sean O, juniors Nikash Gupta, Bryan Li, Samiksha Natarajan, and Eric Wang and sophomore Ishani Agarwal.

The team followed a similar strategy as Team Red, dividing their manpower strategically between the two simultaneous rounds.

"While our team was incredibly strong, our expectations were low considering the extremely competitive nature of the pool," Bryan Li said. "Placing in the top 5 felt rewarding and inspiring, and I'm looking forward to future competitions, such as HMMT [Harvard-MIT Math Tournament]." 

In the individual round, Advaith Avadhanam came 2nd place overall and Nikash Gupta came 10th place overall. Bryan Li, Nilay Mishra, and Amol Rama all made the tiebreaker round. These successes further helped propel both teams to the top 5.

Furthermore, earlier this year, Random Math students have also found success in the Berkeley Math Tournament (BMT), held on Nov. 5. 

The 1st place team, Saratoga 1, as well as the 8th place team Random Math, were both composed of the nearly the same set of students who represented Random Math at Caltech. Last year as well, the Random Math team won 1st place at BMT.

Random Math students also succeeded individually at BMT. Their accomplishments are listed below.

General Round: Seabert Mao (1st Place), Andy Lu (2nd Place), Harish Loghashankar (4th Place).

Algebra Round: Advaith Avadhanam (1st Place), Ishani Agarwal (8th Place), Ian Ogden (8th Place)

Discrete Round: Amol Rama (5th Place), Kavan Doctor (6th Place)

Geometry Round: Skyler Mao (2nd Place), Advaith Avadhanam (9th Place)

"We are extremely proud of our students and their accomplishments in this year's competitions," said Random Math cofounder, Manish Mishra. "We share their pride because they have worked so hard to cultivate these skills, and in doing so, are almost always at the top of their class."

Despite its colossal success on the national stage, Random Math remains a small program, containing just 250 students. According to Mishra, this allows the program to give individualized attention to students and craft a perfect team for competitions.

"Our result density, or the proportion of students who achieve their performance goals, is unrivaled," Mishra said. "It speaks volumes about our program's success because it measures real-world results. Almost all of our students are succeeding on a national stage."

The students' competition success extends well into college admissions. In this year's early admissions round alone, 5 students have been admitted into MIT and 1 each into Harvard and Stanford.

In addition to providing elite math skills, founders of Random Math have recently founded RMXplore to train students who want to have a strong basis in math, perform well in STEM courses, and achieve outstanding results in high school and university courses. Offering both Zoom and in-person summer classes, along with year-round instruction in grades K through 12, RMXplore nurtures early learning and bolsters math learning throughout middle school, high school, and beyond.

"Our program consistently produces winners," Mishra said. "But more importantly, the skills they learn here at Random Math will help them for the rest of their life — throughout college and in their careers beyond. And that has always been our biggest goal: to show that math can be a lot of fun in addition to serving as a foundation for a successful future."

SOURCE Random Math