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Following a gold medal showing in the Westchester-Putnam Mathcounts competition, and a third place finish in the statewide event recently, both Eric Wei (first overall) and Deyuan Li (fourth) were chosen from Scarsdale as half of the team representing New York nationally in May.
The national spotlight is nothing new for Wei, who has been chosen to the four-student squad representing New York in each of his three years of middle school. At the statewide competition, the average score of the 207 participants was 18.9. Wei scored a 41.
“I would like to emphasize the story of Eric Wei, (who) has been on the New York State National Team all three years of middle school,” Mathcounts coach Steve Weiss noted. “He is, by achievement, one of the top math minds of his age in New York. Eric is flat out brilliant.”
In total, Scarsdale accounted for three of the top 12 students, with a fourth in a five-way tie for ninth place that ended up on the outside looking in at 13th place after various tiebreakers.
According to Weiss, Wei and Li - who scored a 38 himself - will practice individually, together and with their other two teammates through a Google Hangout before the national competition on May 7 through May 10 in Washington, D.C.
Following a first place finish last year, Weiss said that the innovative nature and culture of the Scarsdale School District has turned the mathletes into a team that others students look up to and admire.
“Scarsdale has such a wonderful culture of intellectualism where kids can excel on the math team, and they are praised by their schoolmates,” he said. “Kids can grow up in Scarsdale, even in elementary school, (where) being really smart in math is a good thing. These kids want to work hard at this, it’s not a chore to them, they really just love math.”
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