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Student Application

Student Application

"The joy in solving a problem comes from the mathematical journey your curiosity takes you on." Professor Ila Varma, Director of PROMYS India

The application for PROMYS India 2023 is now closed.

All applicants will be emailed with their admissions decision in mid-March.

The deadline for receipt of the application, application problem set, school report card, and teacher recommendation form was 15 February 2023 (at 11:59 PM IST).

The PROMYS India 2023 flyer is here.

Eligibility

  • Applicants must attend secondary or higher secondary school in India in Standards IX - XII (or +1, +2, or PUC). Students must have completed (or currently be in) Standard IX before the start of the programme. Students are still eligible to apply if they are just completing their final year of higher secondary school (or taking a gap year) but have not yet begun their university studies.
  • Students attending government-funded schools, government aided private schools, unaided private or independent schools, sixth form colleges, home schools, and other types of secondary or higher secondary schools in India are all eligible to apply.
  • Applicants must be at least 15 years old by 7 May 2023. (We do not anticipate that any exceptions will be made, but students who are very close to 15 can apply if they wish.) Most students will be older than 15. Students are no longer eligible if they will be 19 or older at the start of the programme.
  • Students who are already attending university are NOT eligible to be first-year students (though they may be eligible to apply to be undergraduate counsellors).
  • Lectures, discussions, and problem sets at PROMYS India are all in English. Applicants should possess English language skills sufficient to enable full participation.
  • There are no financial requirements of any sort for eligibility or participation in PROMYS India. For at least the first year of the program, every student who is accepted to PROMYS India will automatically be awarded a full scholarship which will cover all costs of participation: tuition, housing and meals, approved travel, and any required books.


Please note that students may not apply to PROMYS India and to PROMYS at Boston University in the U.S. for the same summer. They may apply to only one. Please also note that while students for at least the first year of PROMYS India will all be awarded full scholarships, PROMYS in the U.S. is not free. Students who would need financial assistance to attend PROMYS Boston are expected to apply instead to PROMYS India.

Both PROMYS and PROMYS India being highly selective, students in India will have a higher chance of being admitted if they apply to PROMYS India rather than PROMYS.

Sign up HERE to be notified by email when the application for PROMYS India 2024 becomes available. 

PROMYS India Application Process

There are four required components for first-year student applications:
1) Application Problem Set. It would not be inappropriate to think about the problems for several weeks.
2) School Report Card(s) - for all years from Standard IX and above (from Standard VIII and above for students applying in Standard IX). Copies of transcripts issued by an applicant's school are fine; it is not required that transcripts be from the Educational Boards. Homeschooled students should please upload a description of studies undertaken.
3) Online Application: You will be asked to upload your problem set solutions and school report card with your application.
4) Online Teacher Recommendation Form to be submitted by a mathematics teacher or mentor.

Applicants being considered for admission may be interviewed, in English, on Zoom or by telephone/WhatsApp.

To Apply to PROMYS India 2023

Applications to PROMYS India are submitted through Submittable. Click on the Application Form button below and follow the simple instructions to set up your password-protected application portal. Submittable works best on Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. To access tech support from within the system, click on  . For other questions, you can email us at info@promys-india.org.

Four required components for the first-year student application:

1) Application Problem Set. It would not be inappropriate to think about and work on the problems for several weeks ahead of the deadline.

2) School Report Card(s) - for all years from Standard IX and above (from Standard VIII and above for students applying in Standard IX). Copies of transcripts issued by your school are fine; it is not required that transcripts be from the Educational Boards. Homeschooled students should upload a description of studies undertaken.

3) Online Application Form: The application will require you to answer short questions and to upload your solutions to the application problems and your school report card.

4) Teacher Recommendation Form to be submitted by a mathematics teacher or mentor. This does not have to be your current teacher in school. You will be asked to enter your recommendation writer’s name and email address on the application form. When you click “Send Request Now,” the Submittable platform will email your recommendation writer a link to the recommendation form. We strongly recommend that you click the "Send Request Now" button NOW without waiting until you submit your application form.

Please inform your teacher that the submission deadline for the recommendation form is 15 February and that the link to the recommendation form will come from notifications@email.submittable.com and not from PROMYS India. It is your responsibility as applicant to ask your recommendation writer to submit your recommendation form and to follow up as needed. Your application will not be considered until your recommendation form has been received.

Within the Submittable portal, the recommender field of your application form (viewable under the "Saved Drafts" or "All Submissions" and then "Forms" tabs) will note whether a response has been received from your teacher. If you have already submitted your application, the Submittable system will notify you by email when your recommendation form has been received (please check your spam folder as well as your inbox).

Applicants being considered for admission may be interviewed, in English, on Zoom or by telephone/WhatsApp.

Admissions Criteria

Admissions decisions will be based on the following criteria:

  • An applicant’s solutions to a set of challenging mathematical problems. Though they can all be solved with no more than a standard secondary school mathematics background, most of the problems require considerably more ingenuity than is usually expected in secondary school.
  • Teacher's recommendation.
  • Secondary school mark sheet (grade report or transcript) covering all years from Standard IX and above (from Standard VIII and above for students applying in Standard IX).
  • Applicant's responses relating to interest in the programme.
  • The mathematicians who assess solutions to the application problems do not simply add up the number of "correct" solutions; they assess applications holistically, taking into account the mathematical opportunities available to the applicant and evidence of characteristics such as mathematical creativity,  originality, clarity of thought, precision of expression, and perseverance.