Like a few commenters on this thread, I participated in a lot of math contests in high school. Never made the IMO but placed at/near the top in regional and sta

Like a few commenters on this thread, I participated in a lot of math contests in high school. Never made the IMO but placed at/near the top in regional and statewide competitions. On the one hand, my experience mirrors some of what the article talks about: I learned very quickly that the things professional mathematicians work on are very different from math contest problems. (I went to college intending to major in math, but switched to CS as soon as I took a semester of abstract algebra.) On the other hand, the article seems to imply that many great mathematicians look down on math competitions for not giving an accurate portrayal of math as a career path. I don't see why that is an issue. My high school was a math magnet school, and 100s of students participated in monthly contests like California Math League. Almost every participant that I talked to in those days did math contests because they were fun, or because they were an interesting challenge. I never met anyone who said "I want to be a mathematician, and contests are clearly the first step on that road." For me, math contests are like high school sports or drama or anything else. They appeal to certain subgroups of kids, they're fun and hopefully educational/useful in some way, and they don't have to be more than that.