We plan on admitting at least 6 students from your school. We want to provide a smooth admissions process for you and your students, including the day of the admissions challenge.

During the first week of February, we will mail full-color, glossy flyers to your school with an application insert.  The application form should be filled out by the student and their parent in order to supply us with necessary contact information. We will collect the form from students the day of the admissions challenge.  We understand that some students may forget the forms or turn them in late; they can still take the admissions challenge if their application form is late, but we need your help to collect the form by the final deadline and also to ensure that parents are informed about BEAM and the application process.

All of your BEAM Discovery alumni now in 7th grade are automatically invited to apply to our residential summer program, and we will send the application to them separately. However, we do still need to meet with them and administer the Admissions Challenge (AC) at your school.

The BEAM Pathway Program is designed for students who have completed BEAM Discovery or else who have as much preparation as a BEAM Discovery alum would have.  

We're happy to give the AC to students new to BEAM, but we strongly recommend nominating only a few; students that participated in Discovery take priority in our summer programming, and we only accept a few non-Discovery participants.

We will be back in touch later to remind you of which students participated in BEAM Discovery last summer and to discuss new nominations. Please be advised: admission to the residential program for a student who did not complete BEAM Discovery is very rare, as we have to ensure that all students at the residential program have comparable preparation.

We will plan to your school on a single day and conduct admissions for both programs. First, we will give the Admissions Challenge for the BEAM Pathway Program to any interested BEAM Discovery alumni as well as any new students you wish to nominate.  This will take no more than one hour, and gives everyone a chance to learn about the program.

Then, we will conduct admissions for BEAM Discovery, where we'll explain the program, answer questions, and give the BEAM Discovery Admissions Challenge.  During this session, if there were any new BEAM Pathway Program applicants, we'll review the BEAM Pathway Program applications and, based on their math work, we may choose students to interview.  (We do not need to interview students who went to BEAM Discovery, since we already know them!)  

Finally, we may conduct interviews for potential BEAM Pathway Program applicants, if we see promising work on their admissions challenge. We expect to interview up to 2 students at each school.  This will take up to 60 minutes.

In total, the whole visit should be around 2.5 hours.  

As part of our admissions process, all 6th grade students receive a math problem they can think about at home and send back to us in a pre-stamped envelope we provide.

We will also ask you for short recommendations for around 10 applicants to BEAM Discovery, based on their Admissions Challenge work and scores.We will admit at least six 6th graders from your school into the BEAM Discovery program.

Typically, most schools have about 2 students admitted to the BEAM Pathway Program.

We will send admissions decisions to you as well as to students and families, and work with them to plan their summer. We anticipate sending out admissions decisions the first week of April. We'd love your help contacting families and making sure that students are excited about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

Affirming that they meet our criteria for participation: at least 75% of students must qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

Nominating as many students for BEAM Discovery as are interested, and helping us to select the 6 best fit candidates (or 2% of your 6th grade if the number is higher).

Providing a time and location to do our info sessions and Admissions Challenges, and potentially also interviews for BEAM Pathway Program.

Helping us ensure we have a way to communicate with nominated students.

Helping us communicate with families about the program.  In the past, this has included helping when a family hasn't replied to our invitation or when a student's mailing address bounces or phone is disconnected, and giving advice to parents when they are uncertain about whether our program is right for their child.

Finally, we will offer many opportunities to your students throughout 8th grade and we greatly appreciate all the help you can provide in guiding students to take advantage of these opportunities.