Iowa City West High School senior Catherine Xu helped bring home two gold medals and two silver medals after she and her teammates placed fifth out of 15 teams at the European Girls’ Math Olympiad in Bordeaux, France. 

Catherine Xu was one of four students selected to represent the U.S. at the competition.

She said the process of being one of the four started with her taking a test through the Mathematical Association of America, who offer these tests every year. Her and everyone else interested did two rounds of testing and any students who scored above a certain threshold moved on the next round.

Catherine Xu said about 500 students moved on the next round where they took another test that whittled the group down to 60 participants. Those 60 students then participated in the summer-long math olympiad program; this last program was held at the Illinois Math and Science Academy. While at the program, Catherine Xu and the other participants underwent more testing.

To prepare for these tests Catherine Xu said she went back and studied old problems from previous competitions.

“These are very old competitions, they started in the 1900s,” Catherine Xu said. “So there are problems all the way back from the 1950s that I do.”

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She said the program eventually found the four students to represent the U.S after going through the rigorous process of the rounds of testing.

Catherine Xu said she had not only traveled for math competitions before, but that she had also been to France before the competition; however, she had never been to Bordeaux before.

While she remembers that the competition in Bordeaux wasn’t as lively as U.S. competitions, she did prefer the scenery in France compared to her home country.

“It was very peaceful, very beautiful,” Catherine Xu said. “I feel like in the U.S. all of our buildings are very brutalist or very modern, but their buildings were all stone, nicely carved, so it’s a very nice, peaceful and whimsical environment.”

Weiyu Xu, Catherine’s father and a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Iowa, said he is still in shock that she was selected as one of the four.

“It’s a bit hard to believe because it’s very tough to become the top four,” Weiyu Xu said. “I believe some part is luck, some part is her hard work.”

Huan Cai, Catherine Xu’s mother and associate finance professor at Cornell College, said she didn’t feel like she was able to contribute much to her daughter’s success because of how much work Catherine Xu has put in through her own efforts over the last few years.

“She’s very independent and finishes everything on her own,” Cai said. “I feel my only contribution is probably when she was little and I thought she has very good sense of numbers.”

Cai said after she and Weiyu Xu noticed their daughter’s strong understanding of numbers, they decided to introduce her to math at a young age and get her interested in the subject. As time went on, Cai said her daughter began solving mathematical equations that even she couldn’t do.

“We’re very proud of her,” Cai said.

Catherine Xu said the Iowa City Community School District helped her succeed by creating a cooperative environment where students aren’t forced to compete with each other unlike schools in other areas.

“It gives you some peace and space to grow and really think about what you want to do or the best way to learn things,” Catherine Xu said. “There are really good teachers here and the teachers know their material and they’re willing to help students grow.”

Catherine Xu’s plan after she graduates this semester is to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study math and computer science. She said she has a lot of friends from her math competitions who will also be attending the university.

With her time in high school almost over, so is her time participating in competitions; however, Catherine Xu said she is proud of how far she came.

“I’m really grateful for this opportunity, I think it’s crazy that I’ve gone all the way from here to EGMA,” Catherine Xu said. “I think if I told my sixth grade self, you went to France for EGMA, she would be pretty proud of me.”