PROMYS 2020
Due to the global pandemic, Boston University has canceled all in-person programs for summer 2020. We are very sad that we cannot run PROMYS as normal this summer.
After much deliberation, we have reluctantly determined that we cannot provide the intense and totally immersive experience that is the hallmark of the PROMYS first-year experience in an online setting. As a result, we are not planning to have first-year participants in the program this summer.
For returning students and counselors who are already deeply familiar with the PROMYS approach to learning mathematics, we are pleased to offer the online PROMYS 2020 Bridge Program centered on advanced seminars and mentored research projects.
We look forward to this summer’s online mathematical community and to a joyful in-person PROMYS in 2021 – and wish health and safety to all.
Please visit Quick Facts about PROMYS for details of the regular PROMYS program.
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.
PROMYS India near Delhi for students in India: Sign up here to be notified when the 2021 application becomes available.
Counselor Applications: 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.
Yongren Fellowship to PROMYS 2020
PROMYS is 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.
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.
PROMYS 30th Anniversary
Alumni and friends of PROMYS gathered in Boston July 26-28, 2019 to celebrate thirty years of the program! Alumni from the past three decades enjoyed talks given by fellow alumni on both mathematical and non-mathematical topics, challenged each other in a Frisbee match, participated in a career mixer, enjoyed a celebratory Banquet and much more. Visit the 30th Anniversary page for the schedule, abstracts and bios.
Breakout Fellowship to PROMYS
Yi Fan Lin with Professors Lim, Stevens and Baruch
PROMYS was delighted to award the 2019 Breakout Fellowship to Yi Fan Lin from Montreal where she is a high school senior.
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. 2019 is the fifth year of the Breakout Fellowships.
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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"