Colonial Middle School student calculates his way through national competition

Colonial Middle School’s Andrew Zhong placed third in Pennsylvania and 74th out of 224 students in the nation following the 2025 RTX MATHCOUNTS National Competition held in Washington D.C. May 11 and 12.

Andrew qualified for the competition after his performance at the state competition in March, where he earned a fourth-place finish. The top four finishers in each state are invited to represent their state at the national level, so Andrew joined three other middle school students from around Pennsylvania to compete. He met with these students beforehand so that they could get to know each other’s personalities and working styles.

To prepare, he worked with Math Club coach Ann Nitka-Johnson on problems that he might encounter at the national contest. He tried to learn as much as he could from each problem. Going into the competition, where he participated in a written exam and a live “bee” style contest, Andrew said he was not too anxious. 

“MATHCOUNTS has three levels: Chapter, State, and Nationals. I felt some nerves during Chapter and State, but by the time I got to Nationals, the pressure had eased,” he said. “Since Nationals is the final level, there was nothing beyond it, so after enough practice, the nerves were mostly gone.”

Along with the competition, Andrew took time out to tour the nation’s capital. But the best part, he noted, was meeting some of the smartest middle school students in the country who all share a similar love for math. For Andrew, the subject is one that offers many rewards.

“That moment when you finally solve a really difficult problem — it’s incredibly satisfying,” he said. “Those problems are rare, since the hardest ones are often too difficult to solve, and the easiest ones don’t offer that same reward. The deeper you go into math, the more you find yourself near the edge of what’s known — where some problems might even be unsolvable.”