Summer 2022

MC2 will hold free summer camps for Rising 6th to 13th graders this June and July.

Our camps give students the chance to participate in a highly communal mathematics experience. These camps are hands-on, minds-on, featuring active math circle activities, where exploration and collaboration are prized.
2022 Summer Camps will be held in person!

The lottery for all camps except Eugenia Cheng’s have run. Remaining spaces are available first come, first serve. Sign up here.

The lottery for Dr. Eugenia Cheng’s camp will run on May 15th.

Rising 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Program

Back of the Yards High School, 2111 W. 47th St.

Payton High School , 1034 N. Wells Ave.

Both sites will run for two weeks from July 11th to July 22nd. Sessions will be held from 9AM-noon.

Our middle school camps follow the format of math circles during the school year. Each day of the camp features a welcoming environment, an emphasis on community building, and a main math circle activity. 

Rising 9th-13th Grade Program

UIC East Campus, SEO Building, 851 S. Morgan

  • Session 1, Mathematical Modeling, will run from June 20th to July 1st
  • Session 2, Classical Theorems and Conjectures in Mathematics, will run from July 5th to the 15th

You can choose Session 1, Session 2, OR BOTH, since the content of the two sessions does no overlap!

Camp will meet Monday to Friday, 9:30AM-3PM. For more information about this program, please also see the UIC-YSP Camp website.

High School Camp with Dr. Eugenia Cheng

Back of the Yards HS, 2111 W. 47th St.

This one-week camp will run July 18th to the 22nd, noon to 3PM. Students who are rising 10th to 12th graders are eligible to attend.

Dr. Cheng writes: “In this mini camp we will explore high level abstract math in an open-ended and accessible way, particularly appealing to visual and hands-on learners. We will emphasize creativity rather than following rules, discovery and investigation rather than facts, choices and possibilities rather than right and wrong, and structures to be built rather than problems to be solved. These ideas are the topic of my forthcoming book “The Joy of Abstraction: an exploration of category theory, math, and life” which is aimed at high school students and others without advanced math degrees.
In the process we will see how math helps us think more clearly about anything and everything in the world around us, with specific examples including questions of social justice including tolerance, privilege, prejudice and equality. Thus we will see that “abstract” doesn’t mean “irrelevant”, but rather, that abstract thinking can help us understand urgent issues in the world around us. The only prerequisites are curiosity and an open-mind about what math really is.”

Fees & Lottery/Registration Schedule

All of our summer camps are free. The suggested donation for each of our camps is $300 per week on a sliding scale. Families earning more than $70,000 annually are encouraged to donate $150 (half the price of the camp); those earning more than $100,000 are encouraged to donate $300.

Registration for our summer lottery is currently open, and the lottery will run on May 1st.

Preference is based on:

  • The number of MC2 sessions a student has attended during the fall, winter, and spring of the 2021-2022 school year.
  • The school a student attends, with priority for children attending CPS schools where the majority of students are from families designated Low Income by CPS.

Beyond these criteria the lottery will select students randomly.