Philosophy
MetaPrep is an educational platform with a new philosophy for a new world. Or maybe it’s an old one: the first ingredient in education is love. Young people need to be guided by adults toward a life of not simply knowledge, but the kind of character that continually opens doors of knowledge, expertise, confidence, the ability to work alone and in groups, positivity, and everything else important to the human experience.
We aim to make education personal, exciting, and interactive. We do not prepare students merely to take tests. We prepare students to transcend exams while coaching them into taking control of their own education. Our fundamental goal is to help prepare students for life.
This does not mean that we won’t work problems together, write together, study together, and analyze it all. We work very hard to put together a curriculum that teaches students to frame problems, understand deeper material they read, and connect their motivations to the future. We help students gain strength, but also to relax and view the big picture of education as a fundamental piece of the fabric of life.
Stay tuned because our programs and technology will develop rapidly.
Our Team
Mathew Crawford
MetaPrep Executive Director
MetaPrep founder Mathew Crawford serves as Executive Director as well as Head Mathematics Instructor and curriculum developer. Mathew has been building a reputation as an educator starting in middle school when he ran math team classes for students at several schools. His work includes over ten thousand pages of published curriculum, which has been enjoyed by thousands of students the world over. His community building experience includes forming and running the largest English-speaking mathematics blog ring (on LiveJournal); co-building the Art of Problem Solving online school, community (with over 100,000 registered participants), and textbook line; and building two community education centers, MIST Academy and Daedalus Education. His previous work as a statistician in the actuarial and natural sciences and as a hedge fund trader (D.E. Shaw, SIG, and others) helps guide his philosophy of practical and interdisciplinary skill building. Among Mathew’s students are numerous winners of national (MATHCOUNTS, AMC, AIME, USAMO) and international (IMO) math and science (Siemens-Westinghouse) competitions. Mathew has served as a coach of the Alabama, Missouri, and San Diego American Regions Mathematics League (ARML) teams. He has also served as a problem writer for numerous national competitions including the USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS), Mu Alpha Theta, the iTest, and the San Diego Mathematical Olympiad. He was awarded with the Alabama Society of Professional Engineer’s President’s Award for his work as the Birmingham chapter and Alabama state MATHCOUNTS coordinator. Mathew brings with him the experience of a national mathematics competition champion (MATHCOUNTS, AMC, AIME), and was a three-time invitee to the Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program, where the U.S. team is prepared for the International Mathematical Olympiad. In his spare time, Mathew enjoys hiking, sand sculpting, juggling, playing ultimate frisbee, and watching a bit of baseball with his wife.
Xinke Guo-Xue
Mathematics Instructor
Xinke Guo-Xue is a private mathematics tutor in Birmingham, AL. He earned a B.S. in Mathematics from MIT in 2017. He ranked in the top 100 students when he took the USAMO in high school, and occasionally still solves mathematics olympiad problems in his free time. His other hobbies include playing the piano, singing, and learning as much mathematical theory as he can.
Eugene Park
Mathematics Instructor
Eugene is a graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy (Class of 2016) and a Mathematics and Computer Science student at Vanderbilt University (Class of 2020), where he has done mathematics research on Riesz energy and computer science research on deep learning. The past two summers he worked at HodooAI, a startup that upscales video quality in real time for video streaming services.