23/01/2019

23 out of 76 students admitted to Unicamp have medals from OBMEP and OBM.

Of the 76 students who secured places in Unicamp's undergraduate program through a new admission system for award winners in knowledge competitions, 23 are gold, silver, or bronze medalists in OBMEP and OBM, the Olympiads organized by IMPA. This represents 30% of the total.

In this first call for applications for Olympic spots, a format created by Unicamp to promote social inclusion and broaden access, applications were accepted from award winners in 18 Olympiads in 2017 and 2018. The largest number of applicants came from OBMEP, followed by the Brazilian Robotics Olympiad (OBR).

Of the 76 selected, 50 are from public schools; the rest are from private institutions. There are 30 gold medalists, 23 silver medalists, 22 bronze medalists, and one honorable mention winner from an international olympiad.

“Every year, OBMEP reveals students from public schools with aptitude for mathematics and basic sciences. By selecting students who excelled in it, Unicamp admits young people who will stand out in academic life. On the other hand, I hope that UNICAMP will provide OBMEP medalists with the necessary conditions for good academic performance. Many will arrive with gaps in their education, and most will need a living allowance to support themselves in Campinas,” said the deputy director of IMPA and general coordinator of OBMEP, Claudio Landim. Of the 23 medalists accepted at Unicamp, 20 are from OBMEP and 3 are from OBM.

Merhy Endy Dias Farias, 19, who won a bronze medal in 2017 while studying at the Federal Institute of Southern Minas Gerais – Muzambinho Campus, couldn't believe it when she received the email with the news.

“I didn’t even want to register because I thought I wouldn’t be able to, but a friend insisted. Unicamp has always been my ambition. I definitely didn’t expect to achieve another accomplishment through an Olympiad. If OBMEP and my teachers were already special to me, today they are even more so,” says Merhy, from Juruaia (MG), who was accepted into the Mathematics Licentiate program.

Nataina Novais Silva Barbosa, an 18-year-old student at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of São Paulo – São João da Boa Vista Campus, rubbed her eyes to make sure she was one of those accepted to Unicamp. A gold medalist in the 2018 OBMEP (Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad for Public Schools), she was so happy that she sat down at her computer and wrote a message to the competition organizers, thanking them for the numerous opportunities that have arisen since she first participated in the Olympiad.

Approved candidates are from all regions of the country.

After São Paulo, with 25 approved, Ceará is the state with the largest number of students on the list released by Unicamp this Monday (21). The others are from 16 other states, from all Brazilian regions.

Medalhista contumaz, o cearense George Lucas foi aprovado para Engenharia Elétrica

One of the selected students from Ceará, George Lucas Diniz Alencar, 20, is a frequent medalist in mathematics competitions. Among the two dozen awards he has already won are two bronze medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) and two gold and one bronze medal at the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad (OBM). He was accepted into the Electrical Engineering course. “I learned a lot from the Olympiads. They opened my mind to something beyond what is seen in the classroom. I couldn't imagine myself today without this path I've followed since elementary school,” he says, considering the new admission process at Unicamp “brilliant.”

"Because it's a very good institution, there are many students with exceptional Olympic performance who are interested in it, and now they won't have the barrier of the entrance exam, which covers subjects completely unrelated to the area the student wants to enter," said the student, who completed high school at Colégio Farias Brito in Fortaleza.

Bruno Brasil Meinhart, an 18-year-old from Ceará, a three-time medalist at the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad (OBM) and bronze medalist at the 2018 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), described the new development at Unicamp as "sensational."

Bruno Brasil considerou a nova modalidade de ingresso na Unicamp sensacional

“Results in Olympiads require much more than technical knowledge. They require resilience, study strategy, discipline, focus, and motivation. With this call for applications, Unicamp is able to filter students with these skills, and that's good for both sides,” assessed the student from Colégio Ari de Sá Cavalcante (Fortaleza), who was accepted into Computer Science.

The selected students are distributed across 16 courses. The most sought-after first choice courses were physics engineering, physics, medical and biomedical physics, mathematics and applied and computational mathematics, and electrical engineering. Those admitted must register on the Unicamp website by 6 pm this Wednesday (23). The second call will be on January 29 (Tuesday of next week).