By Ana T. Rico Serfaty (CAS’25, COM’25)

Young mathematicians, challenging problems, and one rule: Absolutely no answering students’ questions. This encapsulates Chair and Professor of Mathematics Glenn Stevens’ vision for the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists (PROMYS).

Back in his high school days, Stevens participated in the Ross Mathematics Program at Ohio State University, a summer intensive for students to explore mathematics with Number Theory as their core lens. Fast forward to 1989, Stevens, along with Professors of Mathematics David Fried and Steve Rosenberg, and Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Syracuse University Marjory Baruch decided to create their own program at BU, inspired by their shared experience at the Ross program.

“The Ross program was very famous — I think PROMYS today is just as well-known. I’m very proud of that,” Stevens says.

PROMYS offers various summer programs tailored to high school students with a strong aptitude for mathematics, fostering a collaborative community of first-year and returning students, counselors, mentors, research mathematicians, and visiting scientists.

The Foundation of PROMYS

Stevens describes PROMYS participants as incredibly bright, but often used to being top achievers. This program, however, throws them into a bit of a challenge. The focus is on questions — students have loads of them, always eager to ask. That’s the essence of the program: asking questions. What they aren’t aware of is that counselors are explicitly told not to give answers.

Throughout the summer, students are handed tough problems to ponder over, and they are encouraged to take charge on their own. When students achieve something great, it’s important for them to realize they did it themselves. Participants appreciate the program for not handing out answers but guiding them. Stevens says, when a student comes with a question, he doesn’t just give an answer. Instead, he throws more questions their way. It’s all about keeping curiosity alive.

Research Professor of Mathematics and Executive Director of PROMYS Li-Mei Lim, who was once a PROMYS participant herself, believes that PROMYS is all about letting students learn independently. Over an intensive six-week period, participants dive into the art of discovering complex mathematical concepts and attempting to prove fundamental ideas.

PROMYS isn’t a typical teaching setup. It’s all about creating an environment where students can figure things out for themselves. Lim says, “Here you learn in a completely different way. You internalize information much more because it’s your own.”

Right from the start, all participants are treated as mathematicians. “PROMYS is about letting students learn on their own. They have to explore and build the theory for themselves and learn to ask their own questions,” says Lim.

This strategy has proven effective in drawing students back to the program, as demonstrated by Lim’s own experience. She first set foot on BU’s campus as a student participant of PROMYS, and continued to stay engaged returning as a counselor during her college years and eventually joined the BU faculty in 2018. She now serves as director of the program.

Lim emphasizes the power of the PROMYS experience. “It’s really energizing to have the community around you, supporting you in this really difficult work. Everybody is striving to understand things on a deep level and pushing themselves and each other in the best possible way,” she says.

Stevens also echoes the importance of understanding things deeply, believing that part of PROMYS’ success is due to contemplating simple things profoundly.

“Simplicity is very important, as well as understanding that simplicity is not trivial,” he says. This philosophy leads to what he sees as PROMYS’s foundation: the Low Threshold High Ceiling concept.

Stevens says that simplicity makes mathematics accessible, even to students with limited mathematical experience. Take counting, for example; everyone is familiar with it. Just that simple act makes math easier, especially for those not used to it. The idea of a low threshold means there’s enough basic concepts for students to start with, even if they don’t grasp everything at first. It’s about making a starting point, a simple beginning, so that later on, they can explore all the amazing things math has to offer.

Expanding PROMYS

To this day, Stevens recalls reading Lim’s application before her first summer at PROMYS as a student. This sparked his curiosity since he remembers numerous applications from her high school that year seemed to be particularly exceptional.

After some digging, Stevens discovered that the applicants from her high school had the same math teacher in middle school, who left a profound impact on their approach to mathematics.

From this, Stevens expanded other PROMYS initiatives, such as PROMYS for teachers and PROMYS Pathways.

“Those teachers are amazing,” Lim says. “I love working with them. You always hear about how math is being taught so badly in schools, and how the teachers hate math, and that’s why the kids hate math. But then when I see the PROMYS for teachers, teachers, they’re such an inspiration. They love math, they are so thoughtful about their teaching and their students.They’re really wonderful to work with. They’re an inspiration for me when I think about my own teaching.”

PROMYS Pathways, according to Lim and Stevens, stemmed from a desire to identify students who would benefit but might not fit the stereotypical profile of a math program attendee.

“Students who had the motivation for themselves, the enthusiasm to try out math, but maybe haven’t had the exposure or the experience yet to really catch fire,” says Lim.

Both professors understand that applying to programs like PROMYS can be intimidating, which is why Stevens emphasizes the “Low Threshold High Ceiling” concept to attract students from diverse communities to explore mathematics in an engaging way.

This approach has proven to be successful. In recent years, PROMYS expanded to the
University of Oxford for PROMYS Europe, and just this past summer, they held their first session of PROMYS India at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

In the world of PROMYS, math becomes a journey of questions, self-discovery, and shared passion—a summer that continues to inspire young minds worldwide.