Cooked for Quant w/o Competitions
I am an incoming t10 math freshman who will be majoring in Math and probably Stats. I consider my self fairly smart and a very hard worker. This summer I am doing a summer program hosted by Jane Street in nyc, which required a OA I thought was not bad and fun.
Now the problem is I didn't do actual competition math as a kid. I have a very solid math foundation since a young age (outside of school math program) and always did decent on my school math team, though I never studied or prepared. But i know this doesn't compare really at all to advanced competition math.
My question is, am I cooked not having done or won any math competitions for qaunt? I believe I could get to that level, and something like the Putnam actually seems much more interesting as it is slightly less like traditional quick competitions.
But is it already too late? Trying to not be as arrogant as possible I think I am intelligent enough, based on comparing myself to people I know who have succeeded in competitions, but is it already too late?
Or is this really not as key to recruitment as everyone says it is?