Mudders Impress at 2016 Putnam Competition

Harvey Mudd College is once again the top-scoring undergraduate institution in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, considered one of the world’s most prestigious university-level mathematics competitions.

Thirty-five Harvey Mudd College students spent the better part of Saturday, Dec. 5, taking the challenging six-hour exam, which requires a unique blend of cleverness and problem-solving skills. In the United States and Canada, 4,275 students competed, and this year the median score was 1 out of a total of 120 points.

In the team competition, Adam Busis ’19, Abram Sanderson ’17 and Natchanon Suaysom ’18 placed an extremely impressive 7th out of 554 institutions—the sole undergraduate-only institution among the top 10 teams.

In the individual category, Busis scored 46th and Ben Lowenstein ’16 tied for 81st and 82nd place—both received Honorable Mentions. Five other Mudders—Jordan Haack ’19, Bo Li ’16, Connie Okasaki ’17, Sanderson and Suaysom—placed in the top 200. Seven additional students placed in the top 500: Shyan Akmal ’19, Christopher Hoyt ’18, Sam Miller ’17, Josh Petrack ’16, Dina Sinclair ’17, Matthew Wilber ’17 and Daniel Zhang ’18.

Lists of the top 10 teams and the top 100 individual contestants will be published in the American Mathematical Monthly along with the problems and their solutions.

“We are proud of all 35 students who sacrificed their time, talent and energies to represent us in this year’s Putnam competition,” says Nicholas Pippenger, professor of mathematics and Putnam Seminar co-coach (along with Professor of Mathematics Francis Su). “These students who enjoy problem solving represent a cross-section of majors at the College.”

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam founded the event in 1927 in memory of her husband, William Lowell Putnam, a Harvard graduate and advocate of intercollegiate intellectual competition. Administered by the Mathematical Association of America, the six-hour exam, composed of 12 problems worth 10 points each, has been offered annually since 1938 to regularly enrolled undergraduates in the United States and Canada who have not yet received a college degree. Harvey Mudd students first participated in the Putnam competition on Dec. 2, 1961. In 1991, the Harvey Mudd team earned third place.