Out of 350,000 students who participate nationally, Vikram scored within the top one percent.
His chances were small. Eighty-three students participated in the AMC8 math competition in Voorhees Middle School alone. Nationwide, more than 350,000 students participate annually from 6,000 schools.
So naturally, seventh-grade Voorhees Middle School student Vikram Meyyappan was excited when he learned he placed in the top 1 percent in the AMC8, a national competition for middle school students. He was especially excited considering the test is mostly taken by eighth graders, and he is a year behind them.
“I did the competition last year and I didn’t do as well,” Vikram said, explaining he wanted to improve his performance this year. “I was happy to have scored so high.”
For the contest, middle school students have 40 minutes to answer 25 math questions. Out of 25 questions, Vikram answered 22 correctly.
He noted it as one of his proudest accomplishments.
This is not the first math competition Vikram has participated in. Just this year, he and his team took third place at the MathCounts South Jersey Chapter Competition.
Outside of school, he participated on the Lehigh Valley American Regions Math League team, and The Math League’s seventh-grade competition. In Math League, he tied for first with six other students out of the entire state. They tied with a perfect score.
Vikram is a member of the school’s math club, which he said gives him practice each week in a variety of math problems.
He is also teaching himself an online geometry course meant for the 10th-grade level. Being ahead of his grade level isn’t anything new — when he was in fifth grade, he would FaceTime into a middle school algebra class.
When he first entered the middle school, he took Algebra 1, which teacher Lauren Salls said she believes is the first time that has ever happened. Next year, he plans to take Algebra 2 as an eighth grader.
“I’ve always liked math,” he said.
Last year, Vikram made it to the state level in a MathCounts competition — the level just below nationals.
Vikram recalled a countdown round in the competition, where the top 10 students were given 45 seconds to answer complex questions. Salls said Vikram would solve the problems before she could even finish reading them.
“I started out in sixth place, then beat out everyone all the way to second place,” Vikram said. “I was surprised I was beating out so many people. There were 152 people there, and I beat out everybody except one.”
Outside of math competitions, Vikram said he plays flute in the band and participates in running club.
When he gets to high school, Vikram said he hopes to continue competing in math competitions, and also learn computer science. When he grows up, he hopes to become a math professor, or someone who can continue to research math.
Vikram said his teachers, parents and friends have all supported him and encouraged him to keep competing.
The year is not yet done for Vikram, who will be next competing in an algebra Math League competition near the end of April.
