By Andrew Lovdahl
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Friday, March 2, 2007, The OG, news & student awards

THE RESULTS ARE in from last Saturday's Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics regional math contest at Parkland College, and once again Uni students were nothing short of dominant.

The ICTM divides Illinois into a number of divisions and regions when compiling standings and points. Uni is in Division 3AA, a category intended for high schools with enrollments between 1,000 and 1,999 students. Schools as small as Uni would normally compete in less challenging divisions, but Uni is a notable exception.

Scoring 641 points overall, Uni was the highest-placing 3AA Region 15 school this year, outscoring Springfield High School, the next-highest team, by more than 150 points. Last year Uni won the Parkland regional with 693 points.

Here are the placings of the six Division 3AA schools that competed at Parkland:

— 1st: Uni High, 641

— 2nd: Springfield High School, 487

— 3rd: Urbana High School, 444

— 4th: Champaign Central High School, 357

— 5th: Centennial High School, 353

— 6th: Mattoon High School, 174

In all, 61 schools throughout Illinois competed in Division 3AA regional contests; Uni's score ranked sixth. The only schools scoring higher were Walter Payton College Prep (747), Vernon Hills High School (723), Fenwick High School (722), Glenbard South High School (699), and Benet Academy (681).

The ICTM state finals will be held April 28 at the University of Illinois. In last year's finals, Uni placed sixth in Division 3AA; Glenbard South won the title.

In this year's regional contest, Uni competitors were affected by, as Uni executive mathematics teacher Craig Russell called it, a “rules quirk” regarding how many students and teams from one school could take part in the contest.

“Officially, we are allowed to have only six students participate in each individual contest, and only one team in each team contest,” Russell said Thursday in a schoolwide e-mail. “However, Parkland College makes the contest open to an unlimited number of individual contest participants, and allows three teams per school.”

Before the contest, Russell had to select which competitors would “officially” be competing for Uni — that is, the competitors who would be eligible for official awards. The highest-scoring 15 percent of “nonofficial” entrants received an award called a “Parkland medallion.” Subfreshmen were only eligible for medallions, and four members of the Class of 2011 were recognized: Youyang Gu, Kevin Li, Ian Slauch, and Alex Gruebele, all for individual achievement in Algebra 1.

Here's the list of Uni students who took home awards. “Nonofficial” competitors and team members who would have placed higher but instead received medallions are marked with an asterisk.

INDIVIDUAL EVENTS

Algebra 1
— 1st: Diana Liu
— 2nd: Daniel Wilson
— 3rd: Daniel Cheng
— Parkland medallions: Youyang Gu, Tej Chajed, Kevin Li, Ian Slauch, Alex Gruebele

Geometry
— 3rd: Cheng Luo, Vaishnavi Giridaran
— Parkland medallions: Richard Wang* (highest score), Carl Pearson, Karolina Kalbarczyk

Algebra 2
— 1st: Ethan Berl, Joe Leigh, Jacob Olshansky, Jennifer Roloff
— Parkland medallions: Jason He* (highest score), Alan Liang* (second-highest score), Bhaskar Vaidya, Ammar Rizwan

Precalculus
— 1st: Alex Zhai
— 2nd: Aria Collopy, Luke Chiang
— Parkland medallions: Ian Chen* (second-highest score), Tomasz Kalbarczyk* (tied with Collopy and Chiang)

TEAM EVENTS

Algebra 1 Team

— 1st: Tej Chajed, Daniel Cheng, Diana Liu, Kelly Mover, Daniel Wilson, Chris Yoder

Geometry Team
— 1st: Vaishnavi Giridaran, Alan Kessler, Allan Luo, Cheng Luo, Natsuki Nakamura, Carl Pearson

Algebra 2 Team
— 1st place: Ethan Berl, Angela Jin, Joe Leigh, Jacob Olshansky, Jennifer Roloff, Linda Song

Precalculus Team
— 1st: Robert Boyce, Luke Chiang, Aria Collopy, Annie Liang, Chandra Pathuri, Alex Zhai

Calculator Teams
— 2nd (tied with competing school): Ian Chen, Ben Hyman, Angela Jin, Alan Kessler, Daniel Wilson
— Parkland medallions: Team 1* (tied for highest score) — Robert Boyce, Alex Cahill, Joe Leigh, Brian Wang, Andrew Weatherhead; Team 2* (tied for highest score) — Daniel Ito, Marquis Wang, Jie Han, Kareem Sayegh, Jared Doyle

Freshman/Sophomore Eight-Person Team
— 1st (tied with competing school): Vaishnavi Giridaran, Elaine Gu, Karolina Kalbarczyk, Cheng Luo, Tej Chajed, Daniel Cheng, Danny Ge, Kelly Mover

Junior/Senior Eight-Person Team
— 1st: Robert Boyce, Luke Chiang, Tomasz Kalbarczyk, Marquis Wang, Ethan Berl, Angela Jin, Jacob Olshansky, Alex Zhai

Freshman/Sophomore Two-Person Team
— 1st: Alan Liang & Jason He
— Parkland Medallions: Richard Wang & Diana Liu* (highest score); Carl Pearson & Chris Yoder* (second-highest score)

Junior/Senior Two-Person Team
— 2nd: Annie Liang & Alex Zhai

Oral Competition
— 1st: Victoria Wang, assisted by Jennifer Roloff

RELATED

— 2006 Gargoyle coverage: Uni students win ICTM regional math contest

— 2006 Gargoyle coverage: Math students finish sixth in state at ICTM contest