Testimonials

Students | Faculty and Colleagues | Counselors

PFT Teacher Participants | PFT Counselors

Students

"The time I spent in PROMYS last summer proved to be the most influential time of my life thus far. It introduced me to a world of mathematics that I never had seen before. Everyone helped to create a welcoming atmosphere, and at the end of the six weeks, I hated to leave. The material we studied was fascinating and intriguing; math had never seemed so interesting, confusing, or beautiful to me. The afternoon lectures were also quite engaging, especially those on cryptography and knot theory. In a mere six weeks, I learned as much and became acquainted with as many people as I have in years of studying at school. Attending PROMYS was a momentous experience in my life."

Sarah Eggleston

Cambridge, MA

"When you do math in high school, you kind of get an idea of it as already done for you, but when you come to PROMYS, you get the idea that it's not really all cut and dried and there's new stuff always going on that you have to figure out."
Peter Frazier
Rhinebeck, NY

"I think a really big and important difference is the teachers. The lecturers and the teachers here are really, really enthusiastic about math, and they instill that in their students. It's just a great feeling when everybody's thinking math, and you're all working on it. . . .
"The problem sets are very well designed. Certain problems come up, and it will sort of give you a hint of what's coming next, and you'll say, that's nice, and then you find other problems, and you'll find they're connected. The more problems you do and the more types that you do, you find that they're all connected in this really deep way, some way or another, and you can then prove much deeper things, and it gets so interesting; it's great. . . . They really give you the impression here that math is more similar to art than it is to a science."
Bryden Cais
Virginia Beach, VA

"You are working with some of the brightest minds in the nation. In high school, you don't have people of the caliber you have here. . . .
"People come here at different points in their high school careers. The first time I came here was after my freshman year of high school. I was good at mathematics, on the math team, but not one of the top members of it, not really knowing what I wanted to do or knowing anything about colleges. Basically, I didn't have much direction at the time. While I was here I realized that math is really what I enjoy. Also, being in Boston, close to MIT and Harvard, it's really useful to get to tour those campuses. I'm going to MIT next year, and PROMYS probably had a lot to do with that."
Edward Early
Austin, TX

"PROMYS is a lot of discovery; it's not just reading from a book and saying 'This is what is and learn how to use it.' . . .
"You're just completely immersed in math. . . . One thing they could improve: they could make it [PROMYS] longer."
Eleanor Williams
Palos Verdes, CA

Faculty and Colleagues

"Classroom teacher participation is a particularly important component of PROMYS. . . . Teachers acquire personal growth as they see how secondary students can be intellectually challenged to expand their mathematical horizons. They can derive much from observing how students act in an environment that nurtures the spirit of exploration and discovery. They can transfer and modify what they experience—both the content and the pedagogy—so that all students they reach in their respective schools can be beneficiaries of this exemplary program."
Professor Margaret J. Kenny
Boston College
Mathematics Educator

"Considering the widespread disenchantment with mathematics and science that we witness in American schools today, PROMYS provides a model of how to bring the life and excitement of the subject to significant numbers of motivated students and teachers. . . . In summary, I believe strongly in the value of programs such as this."
Professor Hyman Bass
Columbia University
Chair, AMS Committee on Education
Chair, Mathematical Sciences Education Board
at the National Resource Council

"From my own experience as a student, I know that enrichment programs for gifted high school students can have a major impact on the future careers of the participants. . . . The PROMYS program has been run successfully for about a decade at Boston University, exciting students and teachers with the experience of mathematical exploration. PROMYS graduates have then entered a variety of fields. This is a program worth supporting and continuing, and I'm happy to endorse it."
Professor Nancy Koppel
Boston University
MacArthur Fellowship recipient
Member, National Academy of Sciences

"In an era when agencies are seeking to promote and fund first-rate innovative programs of scientific and mathematical education, I would hope that the BU program PROMYS would be given the highest priority. . . . The mathematics is truly interesting, and the sessions, with their give-and-take, seem to be perfect training for budding scientists and mathematicians. In a word, PROMYS is a summer's worth of practice of 'doing mathematics' on quite a high level for high school students."
Professor Barry Mazur
William Petschek Professor of Mathematics
Harvard University
Member, National Academy of Sciences

"PROMYS is a wonderful way to reach out to talented high school students and their teachers. I view PROMYS . . . as vital."
Professor Ken Ribet
University of California, Berkeley
Instrumental in solving Fermat's Last Theorem

Counselors

"There are lots of places where people can go to learn things. What makes PROMYS so special is the opportunity that people have to discover things for themselves, and at the same time to be part of a community of people doing the same thing. . . . The atmosphere at PROMYS is designed to encourage this by allowing students the academic and personal freedom they need to grow."

Jonathan Hanke

SUNY Stony Brook

"What I appreciated most as a student was the intensity of the program. I think that the main sources of this feeling were the difficulty and depth of the problems sets and the presence and motivation of the other students and counselors. Also, I found the material itself to be exciting. . . .
"At PROMYS, I met people who could offer advice about possible mathematical paths for the end of high school and at college. Many of the people I met are still close friends, and I learn a lot from them as they continue to do interesting things with their lives."
Joshua Greene
Harvard University

PFT Teacher Participants

"At Chelsea High School, we do a mathematics fair. Students do projects in mathematics ranging from history of math, to math in the real world (bridges/pyramids/dams), and many other topics (fractals, tessellations). Last year, before PROMYS, none of my students participated. This year I have six students participating. I hope to have more next year. . . .
"I have used some of the exploration activities which we have explored during the academic year in my classes. I am also working on a manuscript for the Mathematics Teacher for the 'Delving Deeper' section."
Ben Sinwell
Chelsea High School

"The summer after attending PROMYS, I decided to move to Turkey to teach. The school that I am at has the reputation of attracting the brightest students in Turkey, but their achievements are based on a multiple-choice test. . . . It was easy to adapt some of the PROMYS exploration problems and other EDC exploration materials for these students. With the time freedom that the program permits, I was also able to give 'problem set' type homework most evenings that get everyone in the class involved on some level. . . . With this, I am able to challenge their memorized approach to mathematics and improve their English. Most of the students like the different approach, but not all enjoy the added work of not memorizing whatever I tell them. . . .
"I also find myself often assigning homework without any explanation to see what ideas the class can generate on [its] own. I do find myself carefully planning the weeks so I can fit in an exploration project each semester based on the material we are studying. With these projects, I always try to get the students to think deeply about simple things.
"I am most pleased that I feel my students have a better idea of what mathematics is really like. The students here really love making conjectures and then trying to explain why they work. They have little interest in proofs, but they do understand the processes better. I really found PROMYS to be a great help and motivation as a new teacher."
TJ Peacher
St. George's School, Newport, RI

PFT Counselors

"PROMYS has had an incredible amount of impact on my teaching. Actually, I went through PROMYS for two summers before I became a teacher, so it's pretty fair to say that all of my teaching style and philosophy is based upon PROMYS.
"At BHS, I teach Honors Geometry and BC Calculus. . . . And each of these classes, I run it PROMYS style. I lecture very little, and I use PROMYS-like daily problem sets where students do numerical computations, make conjectures, and prove their hypotheses. I believe (I'd like to, at least) that students benefit from this learning style. For tangible data, 75% of my BC Calculus students get 5's on their AP exams, and over 90% of them get 4's or 5's. . . .
"The BHS Math Team has been doing quite well. During the time that I've been there (three years), we've come in 2nd or 3rd in the State Competition and 2nd in the New England Competition every year. This year, we won the GBML (Greater Boston Mathematics League) East Division, and we had four students qualified for the USAMO, the most in any high school in Massachusetts (tied with Lexington and Phillips Academy). We have had an increase in participation every year. . . .
"PROMYS has inspired me so much. . ."
Ryota Matsuura
Brookline High School