Thank you for taking the time to visit our site and learn more about MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization. We are a group of Yale students who are devoted to developing MATHCOUNTS programs in the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS). MATHCOUNTS, founded in 1982, is a nationwide enrichment program "to increase enthusiasm for and enhance achievement in middle school mathematics throughout the United States" (MATHCOUNTS mission statement). Each year, MATHCOUNTS has a positive impact on well over a half million middle school students in 6000 schools across the United States.

In 7th grade, I co-founded the MATHCOUNTS program at my middle school, the New York City Laboratory School of Collaborative Studies. My MATHCOUNTS experience gave me the opportunity to work on problems that closely correlated with topics in the standard math curriculum, and at the same time, included unique twists to make them fun and add a challenge. MATHCOUNTS also created a social network within my school for students who enjoy solving math problems. Both aspects of the program made my MATHCOUNTS experience highly rewarding. My involvement in MATHCOUNTS inspired me to join my high school's math team and has contributed to my lasting interest in mathematics. I am proud that the MATHCOUNTS program that I helped start at the Lab School still exists and that students continue to benefit from it.

Last year, I was pleased to see that over 100 schools in Connecticut currently participate in MATHCOUNTS, but saddened to find out that during the 2005-2006 school year, no New Haven public middle school took advantage of this fantastic program. After a series of informal conversations with friends, several of whom were former MATHCOUNTS mathletes, we decided to found MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization to share our love of math with New Haven students.

We have worked with Larry Jacobson, Executive Director of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation, to discuss our organization and how we can have the best impact on New Haven students. Our conversations revealed the importance of reaching students who may not yet have discovered their talent in math and how much fun solving math problems can be. We also discussed the potential of MATHCOUNTS to raise students' test scores and the overall levels of interest and achievement in math.

I am deeply grateful to our Executive Board for their energetic leadership and hard work. All of them have approached this endeavor with tremendous enthusiasm and a willingness to take on many more tasks than any of us originally imagined. I especially want to thank our Webmaster, Eli Luberoff, for designing this website. I am also indebted to Larry Jacobson and Lou DiGioia for offering us their personal support on behalf of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation, to Paul Brady, Connecticut MATHCOUNTS co-coordinator, and Charlie Warren, both of whom are with the Connecticut Society of Professional Engineers, for their support, advice, and guidance, and to Ken Mathews, the NHPS Math Supervisor for his enthusiastic support of our program.

I wish to thank the MATHCOUNTS Foundation for their generous donation of coaching materials, Dwight Hall at Yale for making their resources available to our group, and to the Fund for Community Service and Class of '59 Fund for Excellence for their financial support of our program.

MATHCOUNTS Outreach runs because of the extraordinary efforts of Yale students and NHPS math teachers. Every week, they energetically share their math knowledge and enthusiasm with middle-school students. I thank them for their commitment to New Haven students.

Thank you again for your interest in MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization. I hope that you find our website helpful and informative and I welcome any comments and questions that you have regarding our program.

Brian Edwards
Co-president and Founder
MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization