A team of “mathletes” from Winburn Middle School took first place at the 2015 MATHCOUNTS regional, where more than 150 students from 17 area public and private schools competed. The top-scoring individual was Winburn’s Austin Li, who won a full-tuition, four-year scholarship from his choice of Western Kentucky University or the University of Kentucky. Austin also received a $500 scholarship from Kentucky MATHCOUNTS. The second- and third-place individuals and winners of four-year $1,000 and $500 scholarships from Western were Insik Lee of Beaumont Middle and Shashank Bhatt of Winburn, respectively.
The top three teams advance to the March 21 state contest in Louisville:
- First place: Winburn – Austin Li, Shashank Bhatt, Dylan Li and William Ding;
- Second place: Tates Creek Middle – Erik Han, Helen Pang, David Vulakh and Nick Tan;
- Third place: Beaumont – Insik Lee, Jason Wang, Jian Cui and Mohammad Rashad.
In addition, four individual students qualified for the next level: Isaac Martin and B.J. Resultay of SCAPA at Bluegrass, Kevin Jing of Winburn, and Young Joo of Beaumont.
At the state competition, the top four individual scorers are offered full-tuition, four-year scholarships to the University of Kentucky or the University of Louisville; they also advance to the MATHCOUNTS national contest May 8 in Boston. Students who place fifth through 10th in the state receive a tuition scholarship of $1,500 per year to either UK or U of L.
The Feb. 14 regional was sponsored by the Kentucky Society of Professional Engineers’ Bluegrass Chapter, Childress & Associates, Fayette County Public Schools, HDR Engineering, Kentucky American Water Co., Stantec Consulting Services, the University of Kentucky, and Western Kentucky University. For more information, contact MATHCOUNTS regional coordinator Natalee Feese in FCPS.