Venomous Agenda Memoirs

Chapter 18: Race to the IMO

Of course, the parish was ecstatic when the Venomous Agendas made their historic run through the HSNCT and finishing one tossup shy of the semifinal. But many in the parish believe this quiz bowl success would be very difficult to replicate next year even with Anna stepping up to the plate to replace William, unless both Anna and Sadie can jointly bridge the science gap. Or another player ends up playing science to replace Imélie that they don't know about.

In the months to follow, while Jennifer gets to spend 3 weeks at Carnegie Mellon, all expenses paid, Valerie spends one week at Duke with only transportation the family needs to pay for from their own pocket. After Valerie has departed Bâton-Rouge (it was cheaper to get Valerie to Durham from Bâton-Rouge than from Lake Charles, even with the extra distance driven), the parents return home, and the gossip intensifies. Glen can't even go around shopping for groceries without being asked about changes in the math and quiz bowl rosters for the following year.

"While I wish the best to Imélie, Vontae and so on, so forth, who will be new on the math team next year?" Catalena's mother asks him.

"Female mathletes have recently been more predictable than male mathletes as to who will play, and, broadly speaking, VA female mathletes fall into two camps: either top mathletes in middle school or top pre-calculus students as sophomores. That is not to say that male mathletes don't belong to either one, however"

Éliane came in from somewhere in the Calcasieu parish as a freshman but was a top mathlete at a middle school that's not so good, Glen gets a flashback about what brought Éliane to the VAs, and Faith's mother then gets up to him, inquiring as to whether her daughter would actually play or not.

"I accepted to sub for Trent for the USAMO, now my question is: will my daughter get to play on the math team?"

"You really think spots on the math team are earned by administrators cashing in favors owed to parents of would-be mathletes? What did your daughter accomplish as a mathlete in middle school? Where did she stand relative to the other mathletes at school?" Glen has questions for her.

"If not my daughter, who else could play?"

"I'm not allowed to release names of other potential mathletes at this time, because making the math team is partially based on their track records in math courses" Glen warns Faith's mother.

Basically, not getting an A in the latest math course is a big no-no for the math team. But I can't take for granted that either Faith or Nicole would replace Imélie on the math team. I hope both will play, and hopefully take pressure off Valerie, however. These are the two names that circulate most; granted male mathletes are also in the conversation, Glen gets another fleeting thought about the makeup of the math team roster. I'll have Trent issue invitations to every student whose name appears in gossip to play for the math team! That ought to calm the rumor mill down... He then turns to Catalena's mother:

"Madam, I'm not sure. However, I would like to know how Trillian is handling herself in elementary school; last year she expressed a desire to become a mathlete for the Venomous Agendas – in Spanish"

"Trillian is very advanced for her age. However, since there is no mathletics in this region for elementary school, acceleration is her only choice. And I must regularly make her do math over the summer, not just multiplication or division, but geometry, probability, number theory..."

"That's a bit much for a rising second-grader, but it's not uncommon for parents of IMO hopefuls to plan their kids' entire childhoods around getting to it" Glen then comments on Trillian's mathematical evolution.

Often parents of IMO hopefuls will plan the entire childhood of their kids around it. From what little I heard about it, some of them will make their kids attend increasingly advanced camps if they can afford it, while others will just accelerate their kids using material they can find online for free, Catalena's mom reflects on what she heard about what the parents some IMO hopefuls do.