Founded in 2001, the Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational (HMI) is an annual math competition run by the Harker School for middle-school students in and beyond the Bay Area. HMI provides the perfect opportunity for middle-school students to explore mathematics beyond school and to meet and collaborate with hundreds of other students who share their interests.

The Harker School hosted its 23rd annual math invitational on Saturday, March 9, 2024. The contest attracted over 400 participants, the largest number in HMI history. We expect to welcome even more participants in 2025.

The 24th Harker Math Invitational will be held on Saturday, March 15, 2025 at the Harker Upper School (Saratoga) campus.

The schedule for HMI 2025 has now been released.

9:00 - 9:30         Opening Ceremony

9:30 - 10:30        Individual Round

9:30 - 10:30       For Parents & Coaches: Speaker Event by Po-Shen Loh

10:30 - 11:00      Break (including snacks for students)

11:00 - 12:00      Team Round

12:00 - 1:00         Lunch

1:00 - 2:15           Guts Round (NEW)

1:00 - 2:15           For Parents & Coaches: Guts Scoreboard Live Stream

2:30 - 3:00            Awards Ceremony

NOTE: Parents should drop students off by 8:45 so participants can check-in with coaches before the start of the Opening Ceremony.

Registration for the 2025 Harker Math Invitational has now closed. Please reach out to us at harkermathinv@gmail.com if you have any questions about registration rules.

The contest fee is $5 per student, which includes both the team and individual competitions and refreshments.

All competing teams must have 4 - 6 members. Teams with less than 4 students will be combined with teams from other schools.

All students in grades 6-8 are allowed to participate in HMI. However, students who have qualified for the 2025 MATHCOUNTS State competition will not be considered for awards. We will place them in a "non-competing" team with other MATHCOUNTS States qualifiers.

Participants are allowed to bring their own rulers, non-smartwatch watches, protractors, compasses, and scientific or graphing calculators; however, students may not bring their own scratch paper (it will be provided by us) or use any other computing devices or the internet.

For the team and guts rounds, "non-competing" individuals will be arranged into teams with others from either their own or other schools to participate in this round but will not be considered for prizes.

The Individual Round lasts for 45 minutes and consists of 30 short answer questions plus 5 bonus questions. Sixth graders will only solve questions 1 through 20, seventh graders questions 1 through 25, and eighth graders questions 6 through 30. The bonus questions will be the same for all grade levels. Each regular question is worth 1 point and each bonus question is worth 0.1 points. When students tie for an award, Borda is used as a tiebreaker. Calculators are not allowed for the individual round.

The Team Round lasts for 45 minutes and consists of 15 short answer questions. Each question is worth 1 point. All students will solve the same set of problems with their teams. In addition, students are permitted to use calculators for the team round.

The Guts Round lasts for 60 minutes and consists of 8 sets of 3 short answer questions each. Teams must submit answers to a previous set in order to gain access to the next. Subsequent sets are both harder and worth more points than previous sets. Submissions are live-graded and scores will be displayed on a live scoreboard. Calculators are not allowed for the guts round.

The Estimation Contest is a single estimation question consistent with each year's contest theme. The student who guesses closest overall to the answer will receive a separate prize.