About Absolute Academy
Absolute Academy is a non-profit educational organization which offers academic enrichment programs in Northern Virginia to foster mathematical and computational thinking skills of students. Our academic enrichment programs include a wide variety of problem solving-based courses in Mathematics and Computer Science. These courses start at introductory levels (suitable for grades 4-6) and build upon each other, growing in terms of contents and complexity with the development of our students.
Absolute Academy uses the A-Star Program, which is a comprehensive curriculum designed towards national and international competitions in Math and Computer Science, such as MathCounts, AMC 8/10/12, USA(J)MO, and USACO (at all four levels). A-Star Program has been one of the most successful curricula to train students towards Math and Computer Science competitions. For instance,
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Out of the ~50 Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program (MOSP) participants in the US, 12 of them were A-Star Program students in 2016.
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Of the 6 member USA team at the 2016 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), two were A-Star Program students and both were gold medalists,
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Out of the 26 USACO Finalists in 2016, 14 were A-Star Program students,
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Of the 6 member USA team at the 2016 International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), two were A-Star Program students, winning a gold and a silver medal.
This long list of achievements go on for about a decade since the creation of the A-Star Program. Absolute Academy brings this highly successful curriculum with Silicon Valley origins to Northern Virginia. Our courses are taught by highly experienced instructors who themselves have participation/coaching experience at the national and international Math and Computer Science competitions.
About Our Curriculum
Absolute Academy courses are based on the A-Star Program.
A-Star Program's Math and Computer Science curricula have been designed by experts after carefully examining the topics and problems in prestigious competitions. These competitions include MathCounts, American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) 8/10/12, American Invitational Math Exam (AIME) and USA Math Olympiads (USA(J)MO) for Math, and USACO Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum contests for Computer Science. For both Math and Computer Science, our courses are organized into four different levels with smooth transitions between each one to ensure that students are properly prepared to their target competitions. Courses include lectures followed by problem solving sessions under the guidance of highly experienced instructors. Pace of the courses are adjusted to the class based on the results of quizzes and mock exams administered throughout the course.
Please check the following links for more information regarding our curriculum.
A-Star Math Program
A-Star Computer Science Program
Who are the Absolute Academy Courses for?
Our courses are designed for students of a wide range of abilities from grades 4 through 12. Students are expected to have a good understanding of the Math courses offered at their grade-level, but the single most important factor is their desire and motivation to go beyond the regular school curriculum and explore new topics, attack challenging problems. Our curriculum is flexible for fast paced students as it provides an accelerated track in basic courses.
Why Study for MathCounts, AMC, and USACO Competitions?
While the ultimate goal in studying for the Math and Computer Science competitions would be success at the international IMO and IOI competitions, the process has enormous benefits to students in various portions of their lives. Some of these can be summarized as follows:
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Problem solving skills: Helps students develop and improve problem solving skills substantially as a lifelong skill.
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AP Courses: A* Math and CS courses have substantial overlap with AP courses. A successful A* student can accomplish AP Math and CS courses easily without much extra effort.
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College Applications: Top colleges such as MIT, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley are after students with distinguishing skill sets, because almost all their applicants have already outstanding scores in regular application items. Participating at the AIME competition (and above) or having attained a USACO Gold division (or above) status are highly credible criteria for a student to distinguish himself/herself during college applications.
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STEM Career: Our program provides a strong foundation for college courses. In addition, one can observe the similarities between software engineering algorithmic interview questions of hi-tech companies and problem sets of our courses.