Dear Parent or Guardian:

On November 18, 2003 your son or daughter can participate in the 19th annual American Mathematics Competitions 8 (AMC 8) contest being offered in your school. Last year the AMC 8 contest involved over 160,000 students worldwide.

With these contests, there are awards in each school for the student with the highest score, certificates for high-scoring students in each school, and state-wide awards. The AMC 8 contest can lead to other more selective math contests, even all the way to the United States of America team sent to the International Mathematical Olympiad, the premier international high school level mathematical problem solving contest. But the real rewards come from challenging each student with mathematics that is new, different, and “outside of the box.” The problems on the contest are hard, but designed to be within the reach of students. Even so, if your son or daughter managed to solve only one or two problems, they should still be proud, because these problems are meant to be more challenging than they routinely encounter in their mathematics courses.

Mathematics is increasingly important in our technological and scientific age. Taking enough mathematics in school is the gateway to jobs and careers of all kinds, even those that are not explicitly mathematical, scientific, or technological. We hope that by offering these contests, we can challenge and inspire students to want to learn more mathematics. We hope that your son or daughter enjoyed the contests, and will continue to take mathematics courses in middle school, high school and beyond.

Sincerely,

Dr. Steven R. Dunbar
Director, American Mathematics Competitions