At this time, it is likely that PROMYS 2021 will run as an online program. A decision whether or not we can operate the program in person will be made in spring 2021. As additional information becomes available, we will update this page and contact prospective students.
The PROMYS 2020 Bridge Program ran virtually from July 5 to August 15. We were delighted to welcome participants from around the world including returning students and counselors who, but for the pandemic, would have attended PROMYS Europe or PROMYS India.
Please visit Quick Facts about PROMYS for details of the regular PROMYS program.
2021 Applications
Student Application: Sign up here to be notified when the 2021 application becomes available.
Yongren Fellowships for students in China: Sign up here to be updated about the 2021 application.
Counselor Applications: Sign up here to be notified when the 2021 application becomes available.
PROMYS India near Delhi for students in India: Sign up here to be notified when the 2021 application becomes available.
PROMYS for Teachers Application: Sign up here to be notified when the 2021 application becomes available.
Financial Aid
PROMYS offers full and partial need-based financial aid and is dedicated to the principle that no one should be unable to attend for financial reasons.
Learn more about Financial Aid
Scholarships
Endowed Breakout Fellowship to PROMYS
Thanks to the generosity of Breakthrough Prize-winning mathematicians Richard Taylor, Terence Tao, and Jacob Lurie and to PROMYS alum donors, a full scholarship will be offered annually to a mathematically talented student who might not otherwise be able to attend.
AMS Epsilon Fund Scholarships
With support from the American Mathematical Society (AMS) Epsilon Fund, PROMYS is delighted to offer a Ky and Yu-Fen Fan Scholarship: a substantial or full scholarship for a talented high school student.
PROMYS is also grateful to have AMS support of its need-based financial aid awards.
Yongren (永仁) Fellowships to PROMYS for Students from China
Two full scholarships to PROMYS for low-income students in China. The Yongren Fellowships were established thanks to the generosity of a family foundation. Details HERE.
HMMT Scholarships
PROMYS awards up to two $250 scholarships a year (to one male and one female first-year PROMYS student) among winners of HMMT who qualify for the program.
Please click here for student and counselor testimonials.
Twenty-One Mehta Fellows in the PROMYS 2020 Bridge Program!
PROMYS is thrilled to announce the participation of 21 talented Mehta Fellows from India in the PROMYS 2020 Bridge Program. These 11 students, 4 junior counselors, and 6 counselors come from across India. Their participation is thanks to the philanthropic vision and generosity of Nick Nash & Phalgun Raju, Avi and Sandra Nash, Morph.org, and Indira Foundation who have supported the Mehta Fellowships to PROMYS since 2015 and who are also the founding sponsors of the PROMYS India program which will launch in 2021.
You can meet these 21 students and counselors on the Mehta Fellowships page.
2020 Breakout Fellowship to PROMYS
PROMYS was delighted to award the 2020 Breakout Fellowship to Tati Kong of Medford, Massachusetts. Tati was a returning student at PROMYS this summer. She is a senior at Boston University Academy who also participates in the PROMYS Math Circle. Tati wrote, “My summer was amazing!! I really enjoyed the graph theory class and working on a research lab with other students! … I feel like I learned so much this year. I learned how to formally write induction and contradiction proofs... Even though we weren't in person, I felt like I could easily talk to anyone I wanted, from the teachers, counselors and fellow students.”
Terence Tao, Richard Taylor, and Jacob Lurie, recipients of the inaugural Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics, very generously created the Breakout Fellowship to PROMYS in late 2014. The PROMYS alum community then matched the Breakout Fellowship donations to create and fully fund the Breakout Fellowship Endowment which will bring one Breakout Fellow to PROMYS every summer. 2020 is the sixth year of the Breakout Fellowships.Yongren Fellowship to PROMYS 2020
Yongren Fellowship to PROMYS 2020
PROMYS was delighted to welcome Qianyun Zhou back to PROMYS in 2020 as a Returning Yongren (永仁) Fellow. Qianyun is a high school senior from Shenzhen Middle School in Guangdong, China.
Funded by a generous family foundation, the Yongren Fellowships were established to enable the participation in PROMYS of mathematically talented low-income students from China. The Fellowship includes a full scholarship to PROMYS plus, for the in-person program, room and board, roundtrip travel from China, visa application fees, and any required books. Please visit the Yongren Fellowships page for further details.
2020 American Mathematical Society Scholarship
PROMYS was pleased to award the Ky and Yu-Fen Fan Scholarship, funded by the American Mathematical Society Epsilon Awards, to Joshua Park of Honolulu, Hawaii. Joshua is a senior at the Iolani School. 2020 was Joshua’s second summer at PROMYS and he says of his experience, “Attending PROMYS was amazing, since it allowed me to focus only on mathematics for six straight weeks. It was a much-needed challenging experience that allowed us to share memories together even in these unusual times… I loved that we were able to meet mathematicians from all three PROMYS programs and explore math together…These were the best two summers of my life.”
PROMYS was delighted to be able to award Joshua this scholarship and is grateful to AMS for the support.
PROMYS India for students in India!
PROMYS now looks forward eagerly to the launch of PROMYS India in 2021. Sadly, the launch of the new program needed to be postponed from summer 2020 to summer 2021 in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.Postponement is a great disappointment, but health and safety have to be the top priority.
PROMYS India will welcome mathematically talented students and counsellors from across India for six weeks of challenging mathematical exploration at Ashoka University near Delhi. PROMYS is very excited about the development of PROMYS India, a separately-funded offshoot program for students in India. Like PROMYS Europe at the University of Oxford, PROMYS India will be closely modeled on PROMYS at Boston University.
All PROMYS India students in 2021 will be awarded full scholarships thanks to the generosity and vision of the program’s founding sponsors: Nick Nash and Phalgun Raju, Avi and Sandra Nash, Indira Foundation, and Morph.org. These sponsors also funded PROMYS India’s pilot program, the Mehta Fellowships, which brought talented students from India to PROMYS in 2015-2019. There were 15 Mehta Fellows at PROMYS 2019!
The Director of PROMYS India is Professor Ila Varma (University of Toronto and UC San Diego) who has experienced PROMYS in multiple roles including student, counselor, Head Counselor, research mentor, guest lecturer, and PROMYS Foundation Trustee.
PROMYS India 2021 will run at Ashoka University in Sonepat, Haryana. The new program is a partnership of PROMYS, Ashoka University, and the PROMYS Foundation.
Sign up HERE to join the PROMYS India mailing list. The PROMYS India website in HERE.
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PROMYS Homepage
PROMYS
PROMYS is a six-week summer program at Boston University designed to encourage strongly motivated high school students to explore in depth the creative world of mathematics in a supportive community of peers, counselors, research mathematicians, and visiting scientists. Professor Glenn Stevens, the Director of PROMYS, founded the program in 1989 together with other members of the current faculty.
The Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) and PROMYS are offering new advanced seminars for returning PROMYS students. Returning students also engage in original research under the mentorship of professional mathematicians.
Returning students present their research at PROMYS
Please visit Quick Facts about PROMYS for details of the program.
PROMYS for Teachers
PROMYS for Teachers is a collaboration of Boston University's Department of Mathematics with the Education Development Center in Waltham, Massachusetts. Together we are working to promote what we call a "culture of exploration" in secondary school mathematics classrooms.
A video of the PROMYS for Teachers program may be viewed HERE.
PROMYS Math Circle (PMC)
PROMYS Math Circle (PMC) was launched in 2016, as a part of enhanced efforts to reach out to mathematically talented students in Massachusetts, particularly those from low-income and underrepresented backgrounds. Under the guidance of mentors (PfT alumni and graduate students in mathematics), PMC students engage in weekly exploration-based math circles, working collaboratively on specially-designed problem sets. Four of the 2017-2018 PMC students participated in PROMYS during the summer of 2018, on full or partial scholarships. PMC is supported by a generous Massachusetts family foundation.
PROMYS Europe
Professor Sir Andrew Wiles after his Guest Lecture at PROMYS Europe
PROMYS Europe is a partnership between PROMYS; the University of Oxford's Mathematical Institute; the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI); and Wadham College, Oxford University. PROMYS Europe is open to pre-university students aged 16 and up who are ordinarily resident in Europe.
PROMYS Europe is closely modeled on its parent program at Boston University. The teaching philosophy and the focus on developing mathematical habits of mind is the same at both programs as is the importance of creating a supportive and highly stimulating mathematical community.
Please click HERE to visit the PROMYS Europe site
Henry Cohn giving one of the daily Number Theory lectures
PROMYS Videos
Video about PROMYS. Students, faculty, and alums of the program were filmed and interviewed during PROMYS 2013 and at the 25th Summer of PROMYS Celebration July 5-7, 2013.
David Miller (Google) was among the fascinating alum speakers at the PROMYS 30th Anniversary, July 26 – 28, 2019. David was a counselor at PROMYS in 1990 and Head Counselor in 1991 and 1992. His talk, titled is “Natural Language Understanding, Deep Learning and the BERT Revolution.”
Alum Hirsh Jain's TEDx Talk: "To Think Deeply Of Simple Things"