Harker’s team came in third place at this year’s state Mathcounts competition, held at Stanford on March 21. Harker team members comprised Rose Guan and Katherine Tian, grade 8, and Cynthia Chen and Jeffrey Kwan, grade 7. “They did an excellent job at the competition and placed third as a team among 33 contending teams,” said Vandana Kadam, middles school math department chair, who coached the team. The competition included 33 teams with 174 individual contestants. Tian placed sixth individually and came in fourth in the speed math contest, called the countdown round. The top 16 students in the written round were invited to take part in the countdown round. Tian beat her opponents in all rounds and made it to the semifinals but lost in that round.

Chen finished 19th, Guan 27th and Kwan 28th. Only two points separated Tian from Chen. “The ranking difference tells you how tough a competition we have in the Bay Area,” Kadam, said.

 “Needless to say, it was a tough competition with William Hopkins, Hyde, Kennedy, Redwood and Miller schools also fielding extremely strong teams,” Kadam added. “Harker’s team members had a consistent high performance on the individual rounds which served them well. With the kind of competition we see around here, the rankings keep changing every year. Last year Harker placed first at the state Mathcounts, while Cupertino Middle School and Miller Middle School came in second and third, respectively.” Please congratulate the students on their accomplishment!