Harker Places First in National Math Contest

Harker upper school math students collectively placed first in the country in the 2014 Fall Startup Event math contest, administered by National Assessment and Testing. The test consisted of 100 problems and had a time limit of 30 minutes, requiring students not only to have the skills to solve problems quickly, but also to know which problems to skip.

Students were coached by upper school math teacher Misael-Jose Fisico. The combined placements of all the students led to Harker being declared first place nationwide.

Swapnil Garg was the first-place winner in the ninth-grade division, with classmates Rajiv Movva, Joanna Lin and Shaya Zarkesh earning fifth, 11th and 18th, respectively. In the 10th-grade division, Misha Ivkov placed sixth and David Zhu placed 11th. Harker’s other first-place winner was Richard Yi in the 11th-grade division. Also placing in this division were Allison Wang (fifth) and Lawrence Li (13th). Finally, in the 12th grade division, Ashwath Thirumalai took third, followed closely by Patrick Lin in fourth, while Rahul Jayaraman and Suzy Lou placed 14th and 16th, respectively.