To be fair, King’s has had pretty strong representation in the IMO team for the last 5 years.
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Hi,
Here’s a list of all the students who represented New Zealand at the International Mathematics Olympiad.
https://www.imo-official.org/country_individual_r.aspx?code=NZL
In the last 5 years, there have been
3 participations from King’s College
4 participations from Saint Kentigern College
3 participations from Auckland Grammar School
1 participation from Macleans College
Of the four schools, Saint Kentigern has had the most participations in the last 5 years.
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What made you choose SKC over other such schools Andrew initially?
Hi Andrew,
Here’s a count of all the students who represented New Zealand at the ICHO and IBO.
In the last 5 years, there has been
11 participants and 2 reserves from Macleans
4 participants from Auckland Grammar
0 participants and 1 reserve from King’s College
0 participants from Saint Kents
Furthermore, in the last 5 years, from these four schools, Macleans has been the only school which has won a silver medal on the international level. In fact, Macleans has had multiple silver medals in the last 5 years at both the ICHO and IBO.
Due to the preppy style of IMO where nearly all of the kids who make the team have been training since a very young age through private tutoring/academies, it’s almost impossible for late starters to compete. It’s pure luck that Saint Kents have done relatively well recently in the IMO than an actual reflection of the school’s academic environment.
This seems a bit of an assumption.
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There is significantly more to a school than pure academic performance, particularly in niche areas like the Olympiads.
Sports are beneficial for learning to work as part of a team - critical for success in the real world. Macleans clearly does well in the science Olympiads (although I might add that SKC does not promote the Olympiads at all, and as such, qualified applicants may be skewed. Unsure as to how Kings/AGS approach this).
Pure academia is fast becoming slightly irrelevant in the real world. Anyone can find the answers to chemistry questions with a simple Google search query, so skills that will be important in the future are being analytical, and working well with others - not necessarily memorising piles of facts. Success in an Olympiad is great, but implications for ‘being prepared for the real world’ are quite marginal.
Certainly, schools like Grammar, SKC and Kings focus on participation in a wide array of areas, specifically for this reason. I’m not as familiar with Macleans, aside from what I’ve heard through peers, so I can’t comment.
Also, @anonymous44 please be polite in how you address others! The forum is for balanced advice and sharing of opinions! Thanks 