His Brother, now at Harvard, Held the National Title in 2005!

A national math award remains “in the family” this month with Glasgow Middle School eighth grader Scott Wu taking home the National Middle School Mathematics Champion Friday, May 6, at the 2011 Raytheon MATHCOUNTS National Competition in Washington, D.C.  His brother, Neal, a former Baton Rouge Magnet High School student who now attends Harvard University, won the national title in 2005.

The question that clinched the title for Wu was:  “It takes 180 digits to write down all of the two-digit positive integers.  How many of these digits are odd?”  The answer is 95 digits.

The Glasgow Middle School student competed against 223 other middle school students in this prestigious competition in which the best and brightest middle school mathematics students go head to head.  Glasgow Middle Principal Judy O’Dell said Wu won the national championship in the Countdown Round after getting second place in the Written Round.  The entire Louisiana team, consisting of three Glasgow Middle students and one from Alexandria, placed 11th nationally – the highest level the state team has ever reached.  Team member Louie Kam of Glasgow Middle placed 116th overall as an individual, while Glasgow’s Elvin Gu was 79th.  About 224 students from 56 states and territories competed in MATHCOUNTS last week.  Glasgow’s Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II and Advanced Math teacher Joan Summerlin Moroney accompanied the team as its advisor.

O’Dell said Wu, 12, has completed Calculus A and B and all the high school math courses while in middle school.  When he attends Baton Rouge Magnet High School next year, she said he probably would take math courses at Louisiana State University, just as his brother did.  Wu did take some Advanced Placement (AP) courses this year, but he could not take the online tests because he was competing at MATHCOUNTS at the time.

“He’s just a phenomenal math student,” O’Dell said.  “We’re just so pleased and excited and proud of all the Glasgow team, but especially Scott. It just shows what a student can do when they are allowed to accelerate and learn at an advanced pace.”

Wu, whose parents are Mei Wu and Guorong Zhang, will be in New York City through Tuesday with his mother doing media interviews on behalf of MATHCOUNTS, which paid for the trip.  In addition to winning a total of $14,000 in college scholarships at the event, Wu also won a one-week trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., and a trip to Boston for the entire family this summer as a vacation.

“Winning this feels pretty good,” Wu said.  “I studied a lot from middle and high school math materials.  Lots of the competition is thinking quickly and figuring out how to solve a problem.”

On March 18, the Glasgow Team won first place at the Louisiana State MATHCOUNTS Competition March 18 in Pineville.  All of the school’s student team members placed in the top 12 at that level. 
This is the third year Wu has been a member of the state team and the second year for Gu. At last year’s national competition held in Orlando, Wu placed seventh in the nation.

The MATHCOUNTS Competition is a national middle school coaching and competitive mathematics program that promotes mathematics achievement through a series of fun and engaging "bee" style contests.  The program exists in all 50 states plus U.S. territories and the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. State Department schools and is supported by the National Society of Professional Engineers at the state and local levels.  Public, private, religious and home schools are eligible to participate as long as students are in the sixth, seventh or eighth grades.

Examples of MATHCOUNTS problems include:
•         If Kenton walks for 60 minutes at the rate of 3 miles per hour and then runs for 15 minutes at the rate of 8 miles per hour, how many miles will he travel?
•         If a fly is buzzing randomly around a room 8 feet long, 12 feet wide and 10 feet high, what is the probability that, at any given time, the fly is within 6 feet of the ceiling? Express your answer as a common fraction.

For more information, contact Glasgow Middle School’s Moroney at (225) 925-2942 or jsumerlin@ebrschools.org or the national MATHCOUNTS office’s Archana Mehta at (703) 299-9006 (Ext. 108) or archana@mathcounts.org.  Wu and his mother can be reached by cell at either (225) 614-5528 or (225) 328-8425.