[paladin314159]

Although I empathize with the struggle of the journey, having gone through a similar path of math team -> Stanford (where I briefly ran into the author), I think this is a particularly uncharitable characterization of math competitions.

Yes, there are many students (even more these days) that are in the grind for the accolades and college admissions, but math competitions were genuinely my favorite part of high school. They helped hone my problem solving, grit (!), work ethic, social skills, and leadership skills in a way that I continue to see pay off 15 years later. I am forever grateful for my high school teacher who supported me during this time.

It helped that I was actually passionate about it, which I think is the underlying point here. Weird constructs like math competitions that help kids channel their passions? Incredible. Forced hoop-jumping for the purpose of college admissions? Horrible.

[musicale]

I also enjoyed math (and related) competitions and continued them in college and beyond. Though I don't think math or algorithm puzzles are good "technical" interview questions, I was still sad to see Google Code Jam come to an end.