2025 AIME: 33 Ardent Students Qualify

The AIME is the second step of the Mathematical Association of America's competition series. Students qualify by scoring above a cutoff on the AMC 10 or AMC 12, the high school contests, and the MAA sets that cutoff each year so that only a small share of the national field is invited. This year thirty-three Ardent students cleared it. The strongest AIME scores lead to the last step, the USA Mathematical Olympiad and USA Junior Mathematical Olympiad.

Younger students take the AMC 8, the middle school contest. Three Ardent students were named to its Distinguished Honor Roll, for scores in the top 1% nationally, and twelve to its Honor Roll, for the top 5%.

Where the preparation starts

Most AIME qualifiers do not begin with the AMC 10. They begin years earlier, in elementary school, with problems that take more than one step to solve. Ardent's Math Olympiad program starts there, for students in their school's GATE program or at an equivalent level. Each week students work multi-step word problems and learn problem-solving strategies they can carry from one kind of problem to the next, and each year they take three or four competitions. The contests measure progress; the goal is the habit of working through a hard problem without being shown the way. A student who starts in the early grades reaches the AMC 8 with years of that practice behind them, and the AMC 10, the AIME and beyond follow from the same foundation.