Berkeley Math TournamentBMT

It is open to everyone — the organizers state explicitly that students need not be from the Bay Area, California, or the United States. For an Irvine family, BMT is one of very few college-level team math tournaments that requires no cross-country flight: Berkeley is about a six-hour drive, or a short flight plus BART, and one overnight covers it. Compared with flying east for HMMT or PUMaC, BMT is usually the best value for Southern California families.

Yes. BMT allows a team of one, though it notes that under its scoring rules a team of at least four is better off. If you want teammates, BMT maintains a Teammate Finder spreadsheet — follow the steps listed on it and you can be matched with other students who also need a team. The December online edition additionally lets students register and form teams with other students without a coach, which is the easiest entry point for a solo student.

The in-person tournament has three windows. Phase one and phase two are both $15 per student; the difference is that phase one caps each organization at 48 seats. Late registration rises to $25 per student. The December online edition is cheaper at $8 per student. Fee waivers are available on request for financial hardship.

BMT is open to anyone in grade 12 or below with no lower age limit, so a strong middle schooler may enter directly. For most middle schoolers, though, the better fit is BmMT — the Berkeley mini Math Tournament — run each spring by the same organization with problems pitched at that level. The usual path is to build team-contest experience at BmMT in middle school and move up to BMT on entering high school.

No. Students who compete in the online edition may not have competed in the same year's in-person BMT — it is one or the other. The two share essentially the same structure of Power, Individual, and Guts rounds, but differ in date, fee, and registration window: in person on the Berkeley campus in November, online in December at $8 per student. A first-time family unsure about travel can start with the online edition.

The in-person tournament fills a full day on the Berkeley campus, starting around 8:00 AM and finishing before 7:00 PM. The schedule includes the Power Round, ninety minutes of collaborative proof-writing; the Individual Round, where each student takes either a ninety-minute General test or two sixty-minute Focus tests; and the Guts Round, seventy-five minutes of nine sets totaling twenty-seven problems, scored live. Students under 18 need a parent-signed waiver.

It depends on how the student's strengths are distributed. General is a single ninety-minute test across topics and suits a balanced student. Focus is two sixty-minute subject tests — in the online edition, algebra, geometry, discrete math, and calculus — and a student who is clearly stronger in one or two areas has a better shot at an award there. Do not decide on instinct: run past papers in both formats and compare actual scores.

For the in-person tournament, organizations must provide at least one adult chaperone for every two teams, and a parent can serve in that role — it need not be a school teacher. Registration, team assignment, waiver signing, and viewing score reports all happen on the ContestDojo platform, handled by the accompanying adult. The December online edition is looser still: students may register and form teams with other students without a coach.