References

Starting in 2024, recommendation letters are not part of the Mathcamp application. Instead, we ask that each applicant provide us with contact information from a math teacher or coach, or, more rarely, another adult who knows them well. This might be you!

Instructions

If a student asks to list you as a reference for their Mathcamp application, then they'll need to provide us with your name, email address, a description of how you know them, and any major availability notes for March and April. (For example, if you expect to be completely out of contact during your school's spring break, we'll want to know that so that we can work around your schedule.)

As a Mathcamp reference, there is nothing you need to do proactively. We do not expect (or want) you to expend the time and effort writing a formal recommendation letter; you do enough to support students already! Instead, we'll reach out to you over email if we have specific questions that we'd like an outside perspective on. These emails will come from official "@mathcamp.org" email addresses; if you ever have any doubt about the authenticity, you can use our website's contact form to write your reply to us directly.

Our goal with this new system is to get the information we want with as little burden on references as possible. If we write to you, we're typically looking for simple responses, as the vast majority of useful information about the student comes from their own application materials. Taking excessive time to write overly detailed, perfectly polished replies might show admirable dedication to your students, but it won't benefit their application, so we encourage you to keep it straightforward.

If we reach out to you and you'd prefer to talk over a brief call rather than email, feel free to request that in reply. This might be especially helpful if you have multiple students using you as a reference.

Finally, even if you serve as a reference, you may not hear from us at all! Please don't read anything into that about the applicant's likelihood of admission. If your student does not end up admitted to Mathcamp, keep in mind that all of our decisions are primarily based on the students' own materials, so if we didn't reach out to you, then it's because the admissions committee determined it had enough information to make that decision from the student's application itself without talking to a reference.

Please contact us if you have questions, or if you need to discuss any aspect of the process with us. Thank you for being available as a reference for a student!