Rules

Teams

All team members must be 6th to 8th graders from the same school. They must also all be in the same grade level, if possible. Students may be moved up to a higher grade level for only the team round if a school can not form a full team for that higher grade level; however, students can not move up for the individual round. Only the official coach of the school can submit a registration. If no teacher or school official is able to be the coach, a parent can be the coach. Since we only allow one registration per school, there may only be one official coach per school. A chaperone must be present at the competition. If the coach will not be attending the competition, you must notify us who the designated adult that will handle check-in and chaperoning for your teams is. Teams must have 4-6 students. Teams with fewer than 4 will be combined with incomplete teams from other schools. Due to space constraints, teams are not guaranteed a spot at the competition this year. Please apply for as many teams as you have, and after registration closes, we will notify you how many of your teams were accepted.

Payment

The competition fee is $10 per student, payable by check. We do not accept any other form of payment. More information regarding payment will be sent to coaches of registered schools when we notify you of the number of teams accepted. The coach should mail a check (payable to The Harker School) to:

Vandana Kadam

The Harker School

4525 Union Avenue

San Jose, CA 95124

You may also choose to drop off the check at that address instead of mailing it. If we do not receive the check in time, you will have to pay double the cost at check-in.

Contest Format

Participants are allowed to bring their own rulers, non-smartwatch watches, protractors, compasses, and scientific or graphing calculators; however, students may not bring their own scratch paper (it will be provided by us) or use any other computing devices or the internet.

For the team round, "non-competing" individuals will be arranged into teams with others from either their own or other schools to participate in this round but will not be considered for prizes.

The Individual Round lasts for 45 minutes and consists of 30 short answer questions plus 5 bonus questions. Sixth graders will only solve questions 1 through 20, seventh graders questions 1 through 25, and eighth graders questions 6 through 30. The bonus questions will be the same for all grade levels. Each regular question is worth 1 point and each bonus question is worth 0.1 points. When students tie for an award, Borda is used as a tiebreaker. Calculators are not allowed for the individual round.

The Team Round lasts for 45 minutes and consists of 15 short answer questions. Each question is worth 1 point. All students will solve the same set of problems with their teams. In addition, students are permitted to use calculators for the team round.

The Estimation Contest is a single estimation question consistent with each year's contest theme. The student who guesses closest overall to the answer will receive a separate prize.

Students who have qualified for the MATHCOUNTS State competition this year will not be considered for awards. We will place them in a "non-competing" team with other MATHCOUNTS States qualifiers.