In the weeks following the AIME, the parish media intensified their comparison games for Gen and Krista, first comparing them to past Louisiana participants at the USAMO. In turn these two also ramped up their training for that tournament.
However, Marcia didn't seem to harbor nearly as much hope that she will even compete there in the first place. Especially not when the last article ran by the student newspaper on the AIME itself mentioned that Marcia had violent panic attacks over the last question. Which caused Marcia to write off the USAMO and focus on quiz bowl until at least the release of the AIME results. Which are forwarded by Trent in late February.
"Let's see: Randy, our footballer at the AIME, got a two and is our worst scorer. The second-worst is a sophomore, Jennifer, scoring a four" Glen thinks out loud while reviewing the results on the AIME. He then proceeds to make his announcement regarding the AIME results. "Good morning everyone, the results on the AIME have finally arrived! And our hopes that a Venomous Agenda represent us at the EGMO, or the IMO, are still alive! For the first time in school history, we have a student, or should I say, two students that qualify for the USAMO! And, for this year, the only two qualifiers in all of Louisiana for the USAMO are here!"
The student body is exuberant especially since the sports teams lacked anything remotely resembling success. But it also forced Trent to consider getting an alternate for the VMC final. He seemingly had an alternate identified for weeks but it's only now that he feels the need to notify the principal about it.
Once the principal is notified, he wasted no time sending a message to the parish office regarding whether Title IX money can be used for a reservist, here Imélie. Sure, Imélie might have the brains to make mathletics work, for years, was a mentally ill perfectionist, is somehow healthy enough to try mathletics again... as much as I would like to believe that puberty and its associated growing pains caused her intense anxiety, I am not sure, Glen reflects while filling out the form for Title IX money.
The parish's answer comes back fairly quickly and it requires Imélie to compete at a tournament for the money to be disbursed. If, in the meantime, Imélie plays quiz bowl then the money shall be used for quiz bowl instead. And she does just that several weeks later, playing at quiz bowl-State as part of a deal that makes her a starter at the VMC final in return.
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On a Monday morning in March, for the first time since the pandemic, the extracurricular portion of the morning announcement contains no allusion to athletic or mathletic results. And quiz bowl, which hitherto flew under the radar, came back from quiz bowl-State with a pleasant surprise. Which is the first part of the morning announcement:
"Good morning: today's news will take everyone by surprise. The Venomous Agendas won the silver medal at the quiz bowl state championship and, for the first time in school history, will go to the national championship!" Glen starts announcing before pausing to let the kids sink in the news. "This announcement won't surprise anyone, however, and is a prelude to April the second. Geneviève got into the University of Chicago"
"This is the calm before the storm, and quiz bowl is now at the... what do they call it again?" the secretary asks him.
"The HSNCT, or High School National Championship Tournament in Atlanta"
"Finally, something other than sports or mathletics! I wonder how you feel about the debate district qualifier, what some of us call a state championship"
"It's a mixed bag, really, especially since I feel like Florence will be a little tired from quiz bowl-State"
"And the USAMO then?"
"These two maniacs put a lot of time into it. It is their time under the spotlight, they are our best shot at mathletic glory"
Ah yes, Glen then wastes no time filling a request for Title IX money for the quiz bowl team for both Florence and Imélie since they were on the VAs' roster for quiz bowl-State. This $400 would undoubtedly make their trip to the HSNCT more comfortable.
After that, he writes a memo to all teachers with at least one senior in the classes they teach on the next two days, reminding them that, should seniors get into trouble requiring detention during class time, they must use the juniors' detention room instead since the seniors' detention room is in use for the USAMO.
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But even then the USAMO obviously didn't make everyone happy since a teacher assigned to the juniors' detention room relays its concerns. Especially since that teacher noticed a distraught Krista on the second day.
"In future years, if we make it to the USAMO again, I suggest that we don't use a detention room since it has the effect of making all the other three detention rooms overflow" that teacher warns him during recess.
"What other rooms can we use that might still allow for a small number of students to maintain social distancing as appropriate for test-taking? Obviously it must not be too large. A regular classroom might have been appropriate for the AMC-twelve and the AIME however" Glen feels like he could be forced to host future USAMOs at some off-campus location, and he doesn't want that. "Let's get real: it's not realistic to expect more than three to qualify for it in any future year"
"And also that it's unrealistic to expect us, as a school, to consistently qualify for it at all Everything depends on the kinds of students we get year in, year out. I also overheard Krista cry and scream My dog is dead, in reference to the IMO apparently" the teacher voices its concern over the USAMO.
"Even Gen would be fringe IMO material at best. Krista may say that her dog is dead, but I don't think now is the time to question her about why she feels her dog is dead for the IMO. The competition is not yet over" the secretary points out to the two of them.
Gen might be the greatest VA mathlete in history up to this point, but the problem is that it's pretty much do or die for her now. I really hope that she will, once out of high school, make the most out of her life in, say, Chicago. But, depending on what makes Krista feel like her dog is dead for the IMO, it might mean some adjustments to how the next 4 years will play out with my own daughter! Glen ruminates, believing that Valerie's high school days won't play out the same depending on what caused Krista to falter. And more specifically, whether it is personal to her or if it's something more structural.
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He will finally get his answer during the Duel of the Parishes II, which he attends with Selena and Valerie. The answer turns out to be long-winded and he takes notes for future reference. About the cold, hard truth of qualifying for the IMO. The logistics of getting either Jennifer or Valerie to the IMO would entail no less than six days blocked off for either one to spend at an alternate venue the year either one would compete in.
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Upon returning home after the Duel of the Parishes, Glen then have a conversation with his daughter regarding the roadmap for her high school days regarding mathletics.
"The goal for you is to accomplish what Gen could not. Then and only then can our school truly achieve greatness for the history books" Glen sternly talks his daughter down.
"What is it that I could possibly accomplish that Gen couldn't?" Valerie asks his father.
"You are by far the best mathlete of our middle school. When Gen was in middle school, there was no mathletics there. The objective: getting you to compete at the IMO"
A perfect score on the MOEMS, and a 24 on the AMC8 (out of a possible 25). These were Valerie's mathletic highlights for the season.
"Why should I aim for the IMO then?" Valerie questions the worth of competing at the IMO for her future. "I can still attend a good college without needing to compete at the IMO! Without having to devote my entire high school life on that one subject olympiad!"
"The IMO is essentially a get-into-college-free card, especially for girls!" Glen then explains to her.
"Are you serious? That's assuming I can maintain the same kind of grades in high school as I do now!"
"There is no reason why you can't. At least not in math-based subjects anyhow"
I overheard Krista talk about a book called Overachievers when she felt stressed out about mathletics. She might not be alone, and the stresses she lived weren't new at all, but with her, I have a better idea of what risks her opponents and, by extension, Valerie's, face. So what the parish did was a good start, but I need to take it one step further especially since 1) even if students were able to do more than one activity, historically VAs put approximately 80% of their extracurricular energy into one, and 2) overscheduling kids now will hurt them later, Glen realizes that he must not push Valerie too hard to make her fit in this vision for the school.
"I need to assume some leadership on the math team at some point! It's not enough to just perform on a team!" Valerie then clamors.
"Here's the deal: Imélie appears poised to captain the math team next season. But your chance will probably come in junior year; by then Jennifer will have graduated"
There's always Tulane if all else fails, in which case she may as well ED there, Glen reflects on her daughter's words related to college applications.
"By now you know that, in mathletics, respect and, from there, leadership is earned with accomplishments. For now, anyway, I would say that Art of Problem Solving is a website you should bookmark"
"You're worse than a Chechen principal!" Valerie then lashes out at her father.
"That doesn't make any sense! Chechens have no real reputation for poor educational leadership! On top of that, honey, what do you know about Chechens?" Glen grills his daughter.
"Admittedly not much: Chechens terrorized Beslan and Boston, they fought for Russia in Ukraine, they fought wars on their own turf. Chantal would probably tell you more about Chechnya than I myself can"
Chantal is passionate about international geopolitics the way you pretty much don't see in eighth-graders. To an extent, Florence knows about that stuff but she is much older. To the eyes of the "humanities and social studies faction" Flo is their main figurehead, and they feel like the HSNCT is their only hope because of her crushing defeat in the semifinals of the debate district qualifier, Glen muses again when triggered by his daughter's remarks about Chantal's knowledge of international relations.
"What makes Chechens poor principals to your eyes?" Glen keeps questioning his daughter about Chechen school administrators.
"Chechen principals, while they don't use students like cards in a poker hand, are academically negligent!"
"You said it so yourself that you don't know much about Chechens! You don't know what Chechen educational leadership practices are made of, nor would you know what areas they neglect most! On top of that, Chechnya is a pretty impoverished region!"
Ouch. I won't pretend to know how involved the federal Russian government is in educational budgeting matters, so maybe what my daughter called academic neglect by Chechen principals might actually be caused by underfunding! Either way, Russia is in a much worse fiscal situation now than pre-war, Glen seems to realize that maybe his daughter might have been too hard on Chechen principals.
"There's one thing that you do that Chantal doesn't! And no, it's not about mathletics!" he then scolds his daughter.
"What is it about then, if it's not about mathletics?" Valerie then lashes out at her dad.
"Chantal would never be that prejudiced. Back to the matter at hand. The roadmap for the summer is to work through the books of the math team, and start using the WOOT system, as well as solve older problems from the trio of tournaments I want you to aim for"
"Other than the USAMO and the IMO, which one is the third?" Valerie questions whether there are any similarities between them.
"The EGMO; if you qualify for the IMO for any given year, you will certainly qualify for the EGMO as well"
Gen mentioned that the best 4 girls in the pool for the IMO competed at the EGMO and most of the time there are only 4 girls in the pool, Valerie reflects upon the implications of competing at the EGMO.
Yet her father's certainty is not actually absolute: it's only statistical, but it's virtually impossible for 5 or 6 American girls to qualify for the IMO considering the mostly male pool of contestants at the USAMO. Even though, collectively, girls don't perform better or worse. More realistically, it's going to be zero or one girl on the IMO team, and it's no secret to anyone in the parish by now.
Speaking of the math team's books, the booster club purchased another set of these for the town library because the USAMO was the beginning of state-wide donations to the VAs' math team.
"All right, if that's what it takes for me to be the best Venomous Agenda as I can be..." Valerie sighs before she looks around AoPS' website for more suitable books on material likely to appear on the USAMO and beyond.
She also realizes she has a heavy burden to shoulder for the next 4 years since Imélie can no more qualify for the IMO than Gen could. However, the first 2 years are going to be relatively calm for Valerie if this season is any indication: this season proved that the parish disproportionately pressured the star mathletes over lesser mathletes. And, next season, Imélie and even more so Jennifer will be under the local mathletic spotlight.
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But on April 2, unlike the previous year, where Catalena had honor students line up before classes started to list either their college acceptances or their attendance decision, this year around, Glen decided to take in the information he could get on students' social media accounts and then deliver the announcement accordingly. Obviously, to keep short and sweet, he didn't state decisions already made. Which meant the decisions made by Cory (another mathlete, but widely considered inferior to even Marcia) and Shane (a student whose cramming expertise was known across the board, and also doing track) to attend McGill and Tulane respectively were not restated. Nor were the less spectacular college decisions announced, such as Florence's decision to attend Laval University and play on its debate team, or Catalena attending LSU.
"Bo proved it was not necessary to perform at a high extracurricular level to attend a good college. He will attend Florida" the principal continues to list the manifest of « prestige » acceptances accumulated by the student body on this Tuesday; he began with a second-stringer on the math team.
Then comes a quiz bowler attending Wake Forest, even though his door slam from the quiz bowl team led to both Florence and Imélie playing at the HSNCT. And finally the "Big Three", none of whom decided where they attend yet.
When Trent forwards him, later that day, the USAMO results for the two VAs competing, Glen braces himself for the student body reaction. Even though, traditionally, the morning announcement covers announcements relative to student achievements, the school's principal believed it was good to reserve the afternoon announcement to announce something that might seem bittersweet to the student body.
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have two girls in the girls' top-ten at the USAMO. Krista, with her seventeen, finished eighth among women" the principal announces before proceeding with a drum roll. "And Geneviève is in the top-five, thus setting a new women's state record on this competition. From her thirteenth place in the overall ranking, she scored twenty-nine points out of a possible maximum of forty-two"
He is also forwarded the MAA's email about Gen's spot as the reserve for the EGMO. Which he skims before he proceeds with the next part of the afternoon announcement.
"The bad news is that our only hope for one of our own, Geneviève in the occurrence, to represent us at the EGMO and therefore on the international mathletic stage lies, for as morbid as it might be, on one of the four mathletes on the original national team getting injured in the next two weeks seriously enough to miss the competition. Sorry but that's the harsh reality of being a reservist; she earned her reservist spot by having the best score of the girls not in the pool of mathletes among which the IMO team is chosen" the principal finishes the announcement.
I pray that someone on the original team gets injured or otherwise misses the EGMO. Gen might not have gotten to the IMO, but the EGMO is the next-best thing, Glen thinks before making his prayers. "Amen"