Each school year, the Talent Search creates five sets of five problems each and distributes them to high school and middle school students in the state of Wisconsin and throughout the world. These problems are not easy, but their solutions do not require advanced mathematical knowledge--just hard work and creativity. Students can work on the problems at their own pace and send in their solutions to be graded. Top participants are invited to Madison for an Honors Day in the spring and to participate in an exam for the Van Vleck scholarship to UW-Madison.
http://www.math.wisc.edu/~talent/
The EMPT is designed to allow high school students to see how ready they are to pursue math courses on the post-secondary level. Each major at every post-secondary institution in the state has some mathematics requirement. In some cases, the requirement can be filled while still in high school but in most cases, additional mathematics course work is required and appropriate preparation is key to success in these courses.
The EMPT program consists of two parts: