Maya Jadhav: A Rising Star at OHS

Maya Jadhav, a current freshman, sets herself apart from her peers through her extraordinary academic accomplishments, that most never achieve during their entire high school career. Most recently, she has been awarded the Jane Street Award for her exceptional mathematical test scores, putting her in the top 5 female scorers in the state of Wisconsin on the AMC 12 exam, taken by students of any age. 

Jadhav is not a stranger to success, as she has had a very accomplished academic career. Starting at a young age, she started impressing everyone at her K-8 school, EAGLE School of Madison, an independent private school for gifted and talented children. Starting in fifth grade, Jadhav started her consecutive four-year streak of winning Wisconsin’s Badger State Spelling Bee. After each win, she then advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee, where, in 8th grade, she advanced to the semi-finals.

In school, Jadhav is already an outstanding member of the Oregon High School student body. After transferring from Stanford Online High School in October, Jadhav jumped into the community and made herself right at home. This semester she has already taken AP Chemistry and AP Calculus BC, two classes that are primarily filled with juniors and seniors. In our interview, Jadhav said “I'm taking AP calc BC right now, which has been a really fun class - it's also really interesting because I'm the only freshman in a classroom of upperclassmen.”

She then took her love and skill in math and immediately got involved in the Math club, with which she gives a “special thanks to Mr. Ebert for running the Math Club and for all of his support!” Earlier this April, Jadhav took part in the Wisconsin State Mathematics Competition along with the Oregon High School Math Team and achieved top honors as a team. She also individually received 1st All-State team honors alongside two of her upper class teammates, Zeke Jeske and Jonathan Krueger.

Back in November, Jadhav took the AMC 12 exam, a competitive test for mathematical problem solving, covering a wide range of advanced math topics. She said that she “didn't study for more than a week before the competition, but I had a lot of experience from previous AMC competitions, MATHCOUNTS (I went to nationals last year), and other competition math opportunities.” After placing in the top 5 female scores in the state of Wisconsin on the AMC 12A, Jadhav humbly says that she “received an email last month telling me that I won this award and asking me to fill out a winners' form. That's about it.”

Now you might think that this level of academic success would separate Jadhav from her peers, but she has been able to fit right in and make friends in the rest of her freshman classes. She has also joined extracurriculars, such as tennis and the math team, of course. Even though she is only a freshman and has a few more years before looking into the future, Jadhav already has some ideas on what she wants to do with her life. “Right now I'm interested in neuroscience, and I hope in the future I can secure a research opportunity and pursue neuroscience throughout college and grad school. I'm really interested in the technology aspect of neuroscience, like biotech and AI, as well as neurocomputation, which involves a lot of math. In terms of colleges, I'm planning to apply to Harvard, Stanford, and MIT - Harvard is my top choice right now.”

Jadhav says that she “would say that my parents have been the biggest help to me. My dad has spent hours and hours finding books, online courses, and helping me study for math competitions even when I was less committed. My mom has always been my biggest fan and is so supportive as well.” With this strong start to her academic success so early on, we are all very excited to see what the next 3 years and beyond have in store for Maya Jadhav!