Who are Alabama’s top high school math teams?
For many years, the Alabama State Written Exam has had its own answer to that question. Let’s take a look at the 2008 team and individual results.
Comprehensive Division
The Comprehensive Division tests mostly juniors and seniors (students who are past an Algebra II/Trig curriculum). Once again my alma mater Vestavia Hills High School resides at the top of the rankings:
- Vestavia Hills High School
- Hoover High School
- Grissom High School
- Alabama School of Math and Science
- Albertville High School
- Spain Park High School
Vestavia took top honors by a wide margin this year, but graduates most of its top scorers. This division may prove to be much closer next year. Meanwhile, most of Grissom’s top students return.
Spain Park hasn’t been around long and is already among the top math programs in the state. That’s an encouraging sign for Alabama math team!
MIST Academy had one student sit for the Comprehensive exam. Nathan Klug (Hoover High School) finished in sixth place.
Algebra II/Trig
This division was extremely close among the top schools, and there is a story behind the top teams. In the past, Vestavia has dominated this division, but was upset this year by the Alabama School of Fine Arts team. The Homewood and Grissom teams were not far behind.
- Alabama School of Fine Arts
- Vestavia Hills High School
- Homewood High School
- Grissom High School
- Hoover High School
However, Alabama School of Fine Arts standout (and MIST Academy student) Nitish Aggarwal recently transferred to Vestavia, which then won the Grissom competition by another narrow margin. I’m sure Vestavia coach Todd Taylor is glad to have the extra “lottery pick” over at Vestavia.
Homewood is new at the top of the charts, and it seems they have ratcheted their math team programs up a notch over the past year or so. They did even better in the Geometry Division.
MIST Academy had two students participate in the Algebra II/Trig exam. Nitish Aggarwal (ASFA) place 8th and Mohini Krishnan (Vestavia) placed 37th.
Geometry Division
Vestavia won this division to take two of three state titles.
- Vestavia Hills High School
- Homewood High School
- Hoover High School
- Randolph School
- Cullman High School
I was recently at Hoover High School where the Geometry coach Bonnie Campbell (who has had many teams place highly in the Alabama State Written competition) and I talked a little about Homewood’s recent success. Mark Hellmers deserves a lot of credit for establishing a very good Geometry program.
MIST Academy had one student sit for the Geometry exam. Xinke Guo (Hoover High School) placed 3rd.
Most of MIST Academy’s students are not yet in high school. One of our goals is to see many MIST Academy students at the tops of these lists in future years.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 18th, 2008 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Alabama, Competitions, Mathematics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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April 20th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Randolph would have gotten 4th or 5th in the Comprehensive division as well if the entire team had not gone to State Science Olympiad that day
April 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Grissom also could have done better in Comprehensive if they weren’t missing math team members who went to State Science Olympiad
April 20th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Randolph has had a very talented team this year — the seniors in particular.
April 20th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Oh haha there is only one senior on the Comprehensive team. Mr. Crawford are you planning on doing any MIST Academy thing in Huntsville over the summer sometime?
April 20th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Oh, I was told that most of Randolph’s high scorers were seniors. Perhaps that person was simply referring to Kurt.
I will not be in Huntsville during the summer, though I see you are on the list of potential students for MIST Academy classes in Huntsville next year. I hope those classes come together.