Today we’d like to introduce you to Richard Rusczyk.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Richard. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
While I was in middle and high school, I was really into math contests. These contests made me much better prepared for the rigors of college than my classmates who just stuck to the standard curriculum, even if those classmates went to top-tier high schools. And it wasn’t just math — the deep thinking required to succeed in contests, and the repeated failures in those contests along the way, were excellent training for the difficulties I would face in college, not to mention the challenges of building a company.
So, during college, I co-wrote a pair of math textbooks for students preparing for math contests. I also decided I wanted to be a teacher, so I headed into a high school classroom after finishing college. I lasted a semester. It turns out that teaching is hard! I left the classroom and spent four years trading bonds. But then the internet came along, and education kept calling. My wife and I left New York and came to San Diego because, well, you probably live here, so you know why.
In 2003 we launched the Art of Problem Solving website (www.aops.com) and online school, with the goal of having a much larger platform from which to reach students than a single classroom could offer. We quickly expanded beyond contests, taking the lessons we learned from these contests and weaving them throughout a full curriculum. Over the first 7 years of the company, we gradually expanded the online school and developed a full range of middle and high school textbooks that are now the core of the math education of many of the top students in the country.
In 2011, we started expanding our reach beyond middle and high school with our Beast Academy (www.beastacademy.com) elementary school curriculum, and our non-profit AoPS Initiative launched the Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (www.beammath.org) for students in under-served communities. In 2016, we decided to go on the ground, launching AoPS Academy learning centers. We have four sites around the country now, including one here in San Diego (sandiego-cv.aopsacademy.org), with many more sites to come.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Our largest obstacle is making the transition from a relatively niche company serving a small audience very well to a significantly larger company operating in many different arenas. While we’ve never had the explosive growth typically associated with internet companies, we have had steady growth throughout, going from one person working part-time in 2003 to over 50 full-time and hundreds of part-time team members now. Our growth has accelerated recently, so we need more people to help train many of the outstanding people who will produce many of the great intellectual advances of the next generation. Our National Office is here in San Diego, and we’ll open AoPS Academy centers around the country over the next few years. If you’re interested in joining us, please check us out at www.aops.com.
Please tell us about Art of Problem Solving.
Art of Problem Solving creates educational materials and opportunities for eager math students. We write and publish textbooks, run an online school with nearly 15,000 annual enrollments, maintain an online community with over 300,000 users from around the world, manage a series of learning centers, and develop educational software.
We started with a focus on students preparing for math contests, which is where we first made our mark. The six members of the United States team that won the International Math Olympiad (IMO) in 2015 collectively enrolled in over 40 of our online courses during elementary, middle, and high school. This was the first US victory at the IMO in over 20 years. The US won again the following year, again with team members who used AoPS materials and classes through much of their math education.
Over the last decade, we’ve expanded our reach by producing the Beast Academy (www.beastacademy.com) elementary school math curriculum and opening on-the-ground AoPS Academy learning centers, with the most recent here in San Diego (sandiego-cv.aopsacademy.org). We have also launched a non-profit, the AoPS Initiative, whose Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics program (www.beammath.org) has been featured in the New York Times.
Our focus on students with a strong interest and ability in mathematics separates us from most education providers. We’re also unique in the wide range of media through which we reach students. Because different students learn best in very different ways, we deliver our materials through many avenues, so that students can engage with the pedagogical vehicle that most helps them. Finally, our curriculum developers and instructors have unparalleled credentials. Our middle and high school curriculum was developed by past national math champions, and most of our instructors have major academic awards and advanced degrees from schools such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton. The Director of the San Diego AoPS Academy earned his mathematics PhD at UCSD, and left a tenured professorship at the University of Tennessee to join us.
One of the largest lessons we’ve learned is that the price-quantity curve doesn’t work the way they tell you in Econ 101. Our online class prices were initially so low that parents later told us we were sending a strong negative signal about quality. Only when we increased prices did they finally enroll. That pricing error probably persists to this day, judging by where we are relative to the market, but it’s not nearly as extreme as it was when we launched.
Pricing:
- Annual tuition: The annual tuition for each Academic Year Course is paid in 3 installments of $595 each. The installments will be charged during Week 1, Week 13, and Week 25 of each course.
- Curriculum fee: $50 per course. This fee covers books (including online books, where applicable) and other resources that students receive as part of the instruction for each course. For courses that require a textbook, $25 of the curriculum fee will be refunded after enrollment if you notify the director that you already have the textbook.
- Annual registration fee: $45 for registrations before January 1, $25 for registrations on or after January 1. This fee is charged once per academic year per student. The fee is only paid once if a student enrolls in multiple courses.
Contact Info:
- Address: 11455 El Camino Real Suite 150
San Diego, CA 92130 - Website: https://sandiego-cv.aopsacademy.org/
- Phone: (858) 367-9600
- Email: info-sandiego-cv@aopsacademy.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artofproblemsolving/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AoPSNews?lang=en
- Other: http://www.aops.com
AoPS Academy Carmel Valley Opening 8/29/17
Image Credit:
Cheryl Steinhoff
Christine McDowell
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