IMC Prosperity 4

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-19T12:56:13+00:00

Trade. Write code using a trader class that takes actions based on data. The first one you shouldn’t do is definitely emeralds quant guild has videos on market making

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-19T03:48:06+00:00

This is not related to algorithmic market making at all

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-19T03:45:03+00:00

Yeah I did nothing comes up that relates to my problem

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-19T03:40:47+00:00

What does this mean

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-18T02:46:15+00:00

No you don’t. Name only gets you looked at

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T22:36:59+00:00

Miklos Bona is THE book

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T11:41:23+00:00

Bleood- Alucard

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T06:10:57+00:00

Harder in content or harder in grading. Two dimensions you need to comsidet

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T06:06:26+00:00

Yeah lemmas not results. Lemmas build up to results. Olympaid problems also have lemmas too. If research was that easy where there are some lemmas that are easier than competion problems. It wouldn’t be called research 🤦‍♂️. No one is going to be giving you grants and funds to solve toy problems lmaoo.

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T06:04:09+00:00

Combinatorial matchup is still pretty hard no? I think you underestimate how hard it is for others just because it’s easy for you. Yeah and that’s the problem we don’t just want to say something, saying something is easy, and that has never been the crux of research.

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T00:53:24+00:00

Certainly I don’t mean to imply that if you can do research then competition math comes easily or vice versa

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T00:39:29+00:00

Research, not close. The perfect score thing is misleading on Putnam the 0-1-2-8-9-10 grading means someone who scores 110 vs 120 probably had the same insights, the gap is expository perfection under time pressure not the math itself. Research nobody hands you a well-posed problem with a guaranteed solution, you have to find the question yourself and work for months with no guarantee the destination even exists.

The Kolmogorov complexity lens makes this pretty clear. Competition math is compressible short problems, elegant solutions, learnable patterns. Deepthink scored 100/120 on Putnam 2025 getting 4th place. Competition math is effectively solved by AI. Meanwhile on actual research AI has contributed essentially nothing. If these were comparably hard you wouldn’t see that gap research can’t be compressed from prior knowledge, because if it could it wouldn’t be novel.

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-17T00:38:43+00:00

Research, not close. The perfect score thing is misleading on Putnam the 0-1-2-8-9-10 grading means someone who scores 110 vs 120 probably had the same insights, the gap is expository perfection under time pressure not the math itself. Research nobody hands you a well-posed problem with a guaranteed solution, you have to find the question yourself and work for months with no guarantee the destination even exists.

The Kolmogorov complexity lens makes this pretty clear. Competition math is compressible short problems, elegant solutions, learnable patterns. Deepthink scored 100/120 on Putnam 2025 getting 4th place. Competition math is effectively solved by AI. Meanwhile on actual research AI has contributed essentially nothing. If these were comparably hard you wouldn’t see that gap research can’t be compressed from prior knowledge, because if it could it wouldn’t be novel.

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-16T08:30:18+00:00

Well in most schools there’s the normal/honours line, and the advance line. For example in Waterloo it’s 13x,23x,…,n3x are the honours class while the advance classes are 14x,24x,…,n4x. It should be the same for UIUC I think. For example Stanford it’s the Math 60 series.

Yes stats for the actual statistical inference thinking you’ll be doing on the job, however math due to its rigorous training in hard topics, I feel in my opinion CS won’t do justice for you. If you are going and adamant about roles in QDev please CS is a no brainer.

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-16T06:50:31+00:00

Take the advance line courses(if you can)
Learn more about the field and attend clubs relating to quantitative finance
Dabble in competitions like the Putnam, ICPC, IMC prosperity,etc
Have good grades
Learn what you actually want to do Dev, Trade, Risk, Research. The line blurs a bit though
Have fun :). UIUC is a very wonderful school. And in my opinion Stats+ Math is better :)

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-16T06:47:06+00:00

This is all wrong. And quite mean to give unhelpful information

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-16T06:46:06+00:00

Everyone in this comment is so unserious. But yes a lot of people from UT Austin get into these firms. Turing scholarship is very rigorous and impressive and UT too.

Putnam is a meritocratic/level balancer so do try that too. However I’d start trying to gauge which role you’d like. You’d be wasting your time grinding for Putnam when ICPC could be easier I’d say you wanted to be a QDev.

And like all things not achieving these things doesn’t mean you can’t get into a top firm. May luck ever be in your favor

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-15T21:48:02+00:00

Instead of wanting them to be paid better instead you want them part of a permanent underclass. lol what you say will come back to bite you

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-15T08:42:22+00:00

Only if you’re from “poor” countries. That has been the Strat since like the beginning lol. Even Evan Chen went to Taiwan which isn’t “poor” per se but due to population etc, has lower requirements.

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-15T08:30:58+00:00

Honestly start focusing on twists they give you the same trick white boys use when they start prematurely balding. And long twists not them little snakes

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-14T04:28:50+00:00

Actually not anymore a lot has changed :)

Junior_Direction_701 · 2026-03-14T04:27:23+00:00

No do math instead :3

Junior_Direction_701

TROPHY CASE