Frequently Asked Questions

The competition is being held virtually this year; how will that work?
An email containing information will be sent containing a link to a Slack workspace and a Gradescope class around a week before the competition date. Please join the Slack and Gradescope before the date of the competition in accordance to the emailed instructions.
The problems will be released through the Slack/Gradescope as soon as the round starts. Your team then has the time until the round ends to solve the problems (either individually or as a team, depending on the round). At the end, there will be a short grace period of a few minutes for contestants to scan/upload solutions to the Gradescope if necessary. We don't require you to be in specific Zoom call during any of the rounds, all you have to do is submit your solutions.

I can't afford the registration fee. What should I do?
Please send us an email explaining your situation, and we'll see what we can do. If this is a year in which the competition is held virtually, there is no registration fee, so no need to worry!

I'm not yet sure which students will be competing on my team. Can I register?
Yes. We need to know the number of students competing, but we won't need the names of the students until the day of the contest.

I'm not from the Los Angeles area. Can I compete?
Definitely. To help pay for transportation and hotel costs, we recommend that you ask your school and local businesses to sponsor your team. If you can't afford to stay at a hotel, contact us and we'll try to find students willing to host you. If this is a year where the competition is held virtually, the same is true -- except you don't need to worry about transportation!

I'm homeschooled. Can I compete?
Yes. You can register as an individual, and we'll help you find a team.

I want to compete, but I don't have a team. What should I do?
First, try convincing other people at your school to be on your team. If that doesn't work, try finding teammates in your area by posting on our forum on Art of Problem Solving. If that doesn't work, please email us. We will do our best to make sure that everyone who wants to compete can do so.

My team is not affiliated with any school or organization. Can we still register?
We'd prefer if you formed a team at your school. However, if you're having trouble finding teammates at your school, we will let you compete on a team with students from multiple schools.

Where does my registration fee go?
Most of the registration fee covers lunch and t-shirts. We use the rest to pay for prizes, breakfast for volunteers, advertising, supplies, and other things needed to run the competition. If this is a year in which the competition is held virtually, then there is probably no registration fee, as many of the above costs are less of a concern.

How hard will the problems be?
We'll try to have a good mix of difficulties. There will be problems that everyone can handle, but some of the problems will be very challenging, so don't expect to be able to solve almost every problem. If you want to get a feel for the sorts of problems we will have, take a look at past CHMMC problems, but keep in mind that the individual round problems at CHMMC 2014 (Fall) will be easier than the individual round problems at CHMMC 2010 (Spring). You can also take a look at the archives of HMMT and the Duke Math Meet.

Why is your competition on the same day as this other really cool event?
We looked into several other events when picking the date for CHMMC to avoid conflicts, but we can't think of everything. Also, sometimes the dates for those events hadn't been posted yet. Please email us the name of the event, and we'll try to avoid conflicts in the future.

Why aren't calculators allowed at CHMMC?
We don't want students to have an unfair advantage because they can afford better calculators.

If I compete, will I get a really cool prize?
Maybe. It depends on how well you do, and how cool our prizes are. In the past, thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, we have had Art of Problem Solving gift certificates, games from Set Enterprises, books from Springer, Mathematica licenses, MathZoom gift certificates, and copies of Matlab. We'll try our best to have even more cool stuff for this year.

My question hasn't been answered here. Who should I ask?
Send an email to chmmc-help at caltech dot edu, and we will get back to you as soon as we can.