There's no evidence that being on the math team helped his application. The people who win the math contests (And yes, who get into elite schools because of it

There's no evidence that being on the math team helped his application. The people who win the math contests (And yes, who get into elite schools because of it) enjoy practice. That's the secret. Tao says the same thing about research mathematicians. The people who hate it don't do well and it doesn't help their college applications. He mentions that he was the only one on high school team who discovered how to triangulate a polygon, which is taught in Geometry class (junior high school for him). Their bad attitude drags the team down.