I remember this page of my history very clearly. It happened just a week before my first mathematics Olympiad. I was selected to represent my school and spent almost half a year preparing for the contest. Technically, I was ready, but my soul was far from inner peace. My grandfather suffered from a stroke and was on the deathbed. His body was trying to recover, but after two months, he passed away. I was in a deep depression state. I...

What a good university consists of? For me first of all academics! I love math, I solve math and I'm planning to spend my life working in the field of mathematics. It brings me joy of the discovery, joy of the teaching and joy of the winning. I've participated in the International Mathematical Olympiad and I know how competitive the mathematics is. When finding the best match, I attentively checked universities rankings according to the Mathematics subject. University of Chicago...

This is what history consists of. It's the sum total of all the things they aren't telling us. Don DeLillo, Libra. Yes, this is exactly what history consists of – the untold stories, the stories of failure, of betrayal, of theft – the stories, which are hidden from the eyes of the common folk by those, who hold the power. Who are those gray cardinals? What do they hide in the monstrous archives? Why this knowledge is protected and secret? What is...

I consider that Brown is the best fit for me, because it comprises everything I am currently interested in. Brown University has a variety of courses in Mathematics and it was ranked 17 by topuniversities.com in the field of Mathematics for the 2012. Because of my field of concentration choice these facts are of extreme importance to me. I dream of studying alongside the most brilliant students from different countries, working and communicating in a highly demanding academic environment. All of...

For me the most important community is our school’s preparatory class for the Olympiads. It has contributed not only to my successes in mathematics, but also to my general interest in science and education. Being a part of this friendly, but highly competitive class motivated me to become more inquisitive, to research and study more on my own. One of the most important ideas, which unites this community, is the idea of the continuity. When I just entered the...

I think the first and probably the greatest problem of racism is how we perceive it. I know many people, who are proud of being anti-racist, but whose manner of thought rather tolerates the racism. For example we have a class of white students and a new black student – Bob. While introducing Bob to his classmates, the teacher will say that Bob is a bit different, but this doesn’t make him any less human. Here is the problem! The...

This summer I became a part of an organizing committee for an internet mathematics contest. This committee includes students from different grades and different countries. It is a truly multinational team, but as in any such team we had to combat some difficulties. At the beginning, when we only started outlining the contest model, everything went on smoothly. We had discussions and polls about the contest’s duration, number of problems, topics for each round and website design. Communication was...

Every good essay begins with a careful and wise planning. I made a table of universities with their essay requirements. Every entry had the topic and the word limit assigned. Before I began my work on the essays I made several preliminary preparations. First of all I wrote down my short biography, but it wasn’t quite helpful. Then I made it into a mind map. It represented both my personality as it is, and its development through life happenings....

Basic pattern for choosing the schools to apply was quite simple: I looked up the QS Top Universities and then visited their web pages. I was aiming for prestigious colleges with high ranks in mathematics field and need based financial aid for international students. The school’s which didn’t offer financial aid were rejected...

I did interviews with MIT, Princeton, Upenn, Brown and Uchicago. All of these were quite relaxed and interesting. I had the longest interview with Princeton, because the interviewing alumnus was a former physics Olympiad participant, so we discussed a lot about Math/Science Olympiads. We discussed several topics, including future career plans and how Olympiad participation may boost my chances. All interviews followed the same...

My application process was a steady and well planned in comparison to ones of my friends. I did everything before the regular deadline for the International students (1st of January) and didn’t have to write all the 30+ essays in two weeks. However there are several crucial points I would like to stop at. The first and probably most important one is the SAT. I would like to warn you that going way too obsessive about any of the application parts is very dangerous, so always take care how much time and effort you devote to every aspect. For the...