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College Admissions Essay: How Algebra Changed My Life

578 Words3 Pages

I quickly became obsessed with math while reading my sister's copy of CliffsNotes Algebra I out of curiosity. Being a fourth grader, I wasn't even sure what it was exactly that made math so fascinating to me - all I knew was that it made me happy and satisfied, so I continued to dazzle myself with fractional exponents, polynomial division, and quadratic equations. I soon found myself using more and more of my free time to learn math.
My love of math grew exponentially throughout middle and high school. In 7th grade, I joined MATHCOUNTS. The club was geared towards math competitions, and so the problems were unlike the ones I was used to seeing in my books at home. MATHCOUNTS problems couldn't be solved simply by applying a theorem or plugging numbers into a formula. …show more content…

Working on MATHCOUNTS problems induced more headaches than I was used to, yet the accomplishment I felt after solving a problem could be matched by few other tasks.

I didn't end up making the MATHCOUNTS team, but the joy I got from doing the problems inspired me to pursue math competitions even more vigorously. In high school, I sought to participate in every math competition possible, including the AMC, PUMaC, and HMMT. Sometimes I would succeed - sophomore year, I qualified for the USAJMO. Other times I was disappointed - junior year, I missed the qualifying score for the USAMO by less than two points. No matter what happened, I continued to relish deepening my understanding of math and thinking critically about challenging problems.

Math has molded my perspective more than anything else. It has taught me

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