Why Romania excels in international Olympiads • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#31

Post by jmspring » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:47 AM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #8

jmspring wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t necessarily see a problem with enabling like talented groups to be mingled together, that said it depends on the metrics. A friend who had a 3.2 in HS did way better in life than several 4.0+ students. The other end of the spectrum is the way most of the US handles high school. Long gone are gifted and talented programs before high school and in many cases, for instance those with an ability for math are stuc…

The issue with "gifted only schools" is they end up eating the bulk of funds and legitimately don't have a strong predictive capacity on student success that couldn't already be explained the parental background and early childhood care. In my case, I never placed in gifted academic programs in elementary and middle, but by HS was able to take 14 AP classes (and auto shop - always liked tinkering since elementary sch…

That is a lot to read. I’m no longer in my 40s. Grade school - in San Jose - gifted and talented classes were classes at the school not a separate school.

Sadly education has evolved where schools teach to the norm rather than acknowledging people have different strengths and weaknesses.

It does not require separate schools, it needs funding and more importantly, someone good at math needs to be able to work with others good at math.

The educational curriculum in the US for grade school has been standardized to the mediocre and any attempt to encourage gifted is considered a problem.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#32

Post by alexey-salmin » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:49 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #16

The education system is stratified, keeping high-achieving students together, promoting them to schools with good teachers, etc. OK, so then why don't the situations given in the elaborate description then show up in the statistics, like the "fat right tail" that isn't there? It's because the students sent to olympiads are statistical outliers, too few in number to skew statistics. The system acts to identify and fos…

> The system acts to identify and foster them, but to the detriment of national averages.

This is the usual argument against stratified education systems but is it proven in any way? My experience with stratified systems is that they increase both high quantiles and the average. Maybe (even if not established), maybe they reduce low quantiles like the 0.1th, but very unlikely they damage the average. Quite the opposite.

It's kind of like this idea that communism makes an average citizen richer which sounds logical, but in the end everyone's poorer. Remove the stratification and there's no incentive to do anything.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#33

Post by _alternator_ » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:49 AM UTC

This magazine regularly publishes neo-fascist works that are clothed in techno-libertarian garb. Take this article [1]. Highlights include fawning homages to Werner von Braun while failing to mention his ardent pro-Nazi views, support for Cortes’ conquest of the new world, and a general vibe supporting the ubermensch/great man theory of history (as here).

They’ve recently toned things down a bit, but it’s hard not to notice this vibe once you see it.

[1] https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/04/25/entrepreneurial-stat...

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#34

Post by faangguyindia » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:50 AM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #18

faangguyindia wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" is known as Goodhart's Law

The parent is arguing for a target, not for a metric, so Goodhart's Law doesn't apply here.

I didn't know Olympiads do not have any score (metric). Thank you.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#35

Post by koolba » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:52 AM UTC

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #9

There are many factors - most of them economic and cultural - but it all starts with an intense maths syllabus in school, Soviet Union style. Here's the current one for 5th to 8th grade: https://www.scribd.com/document/184259748/The-Romanian-Maths... Most kids are overwhelmed by the complexity and volume (homework is brutal) but those few with an aptitude for it thrive and are picked up quickly by teachers looking to…

Having seen what children are capable of, it’s neither overwhelming nor brutal.

What’s truly brutal is acquiescing to children droning away their youth mindlessly clicking meaningless games or watching vacuous streaming content. We live in what could be a golden age of thought but for the average kid it’s anything but.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#36

Post by xyzzy123 » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

patel011393 wrote: post #29

xyzzy123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if national averages actually matter very much beyond being a vanity statistic? While it's good to have a generally more mathematically capable population, you would expect most actual "progress" (papers, discoveries, things built) to be made by the outliers. I guess there's another layer tho in 2025 where, assuming they are rational, you wouldn't necessarily expect their efforts to benefit Romania.

Yes, a numerate population as assessed by national averages matters. A more numerate population reasons better about economic policies and may vote more wisely. Numeracy is closely tied to the ability to work in a variety of occupations. If we consider probability and statistics, the implications are especially salient.

This seems to me more like a reasonable hypothesis than a foregone conclusion.

Personally I suspect there's a floor (can read a chart, understands growth rates and compounding in general) which the public need to assess arguments constructed by specialists, while the rest is mostly understanding ideology.

The reason I believe that is, I think I can pretty much predict 100% of the conclusion of most articles written for the public by knowing the names & affiliations of the authors and the topic. The only uncertainty is what sources and statistics they will pick to reach the conclusion required by their ideology.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#37

Post by alephnerd » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:55 AM UTC

jmspring wrote: post #31

alephnerd wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue with "gifted only schools" is they end up eating the bulk of funds and legitimately don't have a strong predictive capacity on student success that couldn't already be explained the parental background and early childhood care. In my case, I never placed in gifted academic programs in elementary and middle, but by HS was able to take 14 AP classes (and auto shop - always liked tinkering since elementary sch…

That is a lot to read. I’m no longer in my 40s. Grade school - in San Jose - gifted and talented classes were classes at the school not a separate school. Sadly education has evolved where schools teach to the norm rather than acknowledging people have different strengths and weaknesses. It does not require separate schools, it needs funding and more importantly, someone good at math needs to be able to work with oth…

I agree with you!

Give students the ability to test out of classes and/or dual enroll in community colleges, BUT make sure they are all still in the same school meeting and greeting and bumping into each other.

Dumbing down curricula is a bad move, and preventing students from being able to test out or take classes earlier is also a bad move. But segregating students into different schools based on academic ability is equally as bad.

> Grade school - in San Jose - gifted and talented classes were classes at the school not a separate school

Yep. This is a model I agree with, and am a product of as well being a fellow Bay Area native

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#38

Post by ecshafer » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 2:58 AM UTC

koolba wrote: post #35

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #9

There are many factors - most of them economic and cultural - but it all starts with an intense maths syllabus in school, Soviet Union style. Here's the current one for 5th to 8th grade: https://www.scribd.com/document/184259748/The-Romanian-Maths... Most kids are overwhelmed by the complexity and volume (homework is brutal) but those few with an aptitude for it thrive and are picked up quickly by teachers looking to…

Having seen what children are capable of, it’s neither overwhelming nor brutal. What’s truly brutal is acquiescing to children droning away their youth mindlessly clicking meaningless games or watching vacuous streaming content. We live in what could be a golden age of thought but for the average kid it’s anything but.

I have to agree with you. Children are adaptable and will rise to the challenge. The west too often prefers to think children are capable of nothing, and have them wallow in an intellectual void.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#39

Post by alexey-salmin » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 3:01 AM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #2

Tl;dr - Romania, like other Eastern European states, uses "tracking" or separate educational streams, so students from "National Colleges" (the top tier of Romanian high schools) tend to be overrepresented. > The design of Romania’s educational system makes it perhaps the most stratified educational system in the world > One of the cruel parts of the Romanian system is that, though sorting is nationally available, st…

> Ik people tend to point to Russian, Chinese, and Indian Olympiad students as being examples of success, but most of them also attended top universities due to their Olympiad attendance, so I doubt the Olympiad itself had an impact compared to attending a Tsinghua, FyzTech (Citadel still hires from there for the London office at least circa 2023 despite the war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia), or IIT Delhi.

Path to FyzTech lies through FMSHs which accept high school students largely via regional-level Olympiads. And path to that lies through the Olympiad "circle" in your local school.

You probably can build a stratified education system without Olympiads, but as a matter of fact in Russia they do actually play an important role in the overall structure.

Re: Why Romania excels in international Olympiads

#40

Post by alexey-salmin » Sat, Aug 30, 2025, 3:08 AM UTC

_alternator_ wrote: post #33

This magazine regularly publishes neo-fascist works that are clothed in techno-libertarian garb. Take this article [1]. Highlights include fawning homages to Werner von Braun while failing to mention his ardent pro-Nazi views, support for Cortes’ conquest of the new world, and a general vibe supporting the ubermensch/great man theory of history (as here). They’ve recently toned things down a bit, but it’s hard not to…

> neo-fascist works that are clothed in techno-libertarian garb. Take this article [1]. Highlights include fawning homages to Werner von Braun while failing to mention his ardent pro-Nazi views, support for Cortes’ conquest of the new world, and a general vibe supporting the ubermensch/great man theory of history (as here).

I like how you imply that celebrating the space program, the Age of Discovery and math Olympiads is neo-fascist. Tells a lot about what neo-fascism apparently is.