By Cindy Liu, grade 11

In November, Harker students participated and ranked in numerous math competitions, both individually and as teams.

On Nov. 7, Harker tied for second place nationwide with a score of 78 in the National Assessment Team Scramble, a 100-problem, 30-minute team contest. Students collaborated after school on the questions, which covered a broad range of math topics.

In addition, Harker continued to do well in Interstellar, an online math contest endorsed by the Math Association of America and run by American Math Competitions. The contest, implemented this year, differs from traditional math tests in its online, round-robin format.

“Interstellar isn’t all that different from other contests, but I’ve made typos when putting in my answer, so you do have to be more careful,” said Patrick Lin, grade 11. “We’ve consistently been getting top finishes each week, so we should hopefully go pretty far in the contest.”

Harker defeated Morgantown High School, Grand Blanc High School and BASIS Tucson North to reach the octofinals in their division. The team is currently ranked second nationwide.

In addition, the first round of the Mandelbrot competition, a five-round individual contest, was held Nov. 4. Students chose between the regional test and the more difficult national test.

In national rankings, Richard Yi, grade 10, and seniors Vikram Sundar and Varun Mohan tied for first place with perfect scores of 14. Junior Ashwath Thirumalai was close behind with a score of 12. In regional rankings, Nitya Mani, grade 11, earned a perfect score, and sophomore Jessica Zhu scored 11. Harker is ranked seventh nationwide based on the scores from the first round.

Meanwhile, 10 students participated in the Santa Clara University High School Mathematics Competition on Nov. 16. The results of the contest have not yet been released.