The AMATYC "Student Math League" Contest is a math contest held each year at community colleges nationwide. It consists of two one-hour exams. At CCSF, the first exam is typically given in early November and the second exam is given in early March. Each exam consists of 20 multiple choice questions covering precalculus material (e.g. algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and statistics/probability). Examples of past exams can be downloaded (as PDF files) from this AMATYC webpage. [Note: You'll need the free Adobe Acrobat software to read these files.] Various contest scholarships and prizes are awarded, among them:
- The CCSF Math Department offers prizes of $100, $75, and $50 to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd highest scoring CCSF student participants.
- Five scholarship prizes of values up to $500 are awarded for the five highest scoring contestants from a northern California community college. These scholarships are provided by CMC^3 (California Mathematics Council-Community Colleges), which is a professional society of community college math teachers in Northern California. In past years a number of CCSF students have been awarded such scholarships (ranging from $200 to $500).
- A $3000 scholarship to an accredited 4-year college or university for the highest scoring participant nationwide. This scholarship is provided by AMATYC.
- AMATYC awards various prizes (e.g. books, plaques, etc.) to the top ten participants nationwide and to members of the 1st place team. (The five highest scoring students among a college's participants comprises the college's "team". In the past, CCSF's contest teams have placed among the top 10 schools nationwide, and the CCSF team earned first place in the 2002-2003 academic year.)
All CCSF students are welcome to participate. No special registration is required --- all an interested student needs to do is come to the contest room at the announced time on the contest date. Students are also permitted to bring and use any scientific or graphics calculator that does not have a QWERTY (i.e. typewriter) keyboard.
Note, however, that students who have already earned a two-year college degree (or higher) are not eligible to compete for official awards.