Five years, five triumphs in Putnam Math Competition | MIT News

For the fifth time in the history of the annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, and for the fifth year in a row, MIT swept all five of the contest’s top spots.

The top five scorers each year are named Putnam Fellows. Senior Brian Liu and juniors Papon Lapate and Luke Robitaille are now three-time Putnam Fellows, sophomore Jiangqi Dai earned his second win, and first-year Qiao Sun earned his first. Each receives a $2,500 award. This is also the fifth time that any school has had all five Putnam Fellows.

MIT’s team also came in first. The team was made up of Lapate, Robitaille, and Sun (in alphabetical order); Lapate and Robitaille were also on last year’s winning team. This is MIT’s ninth first-place win in the past 11 competitions. Teams consist of the three top scorers from each institution. The institution with the first-place team receives a $25,000 award, and each team member receives $1,000.  

First-year Jessica Wan was the top-scoring woman, finishing in the top 25, which earned her the $1,000 Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize. She is the eighth MIT student to receive this honor since the award was created in 1992. This is the sixth year in a row that an MIT woman has won the prize.

In total, 69 MIT students scored within the top 100. Beyond the top five scorers, MIT took nine of the next 11 spots (each receiving a $1,000 award), and seven of the next nine spots (earning $250 awards). Of the 75 receiving honorable mentions, 48 were from MIT. A total of 3,988 students took the exam in December, including 222 MIT students.

This exam is considered to be the most prestigious university-level mathematics competition in the United States and Canada. 

The Putnam is known for its difficulty: While a perfect score is 120, this year’s top score was 90, and the median was just 2. While many MIT students scored well, the Department of Mathematics is proud of everyone who just took the exam, says Professor Michel Goemans, head of the Department of Mathematics. 

“Year after year, I am so impressed by the sheer number of students at MIT that participate in the Putnam competition,” Goemans says. “In no other college or university in the world can one find hundreds of students who get a kick out of thinking about math problems. So refreshing!” 

Adds Professor Bjorn Poonen, who helped MIT students prepare for the exam this year, “The incredible competition performance is just one manifestation of MIT’s vibrant community of students who love doing math and discussing math with each other, students who through their hard work in this environment excel in ways beyond competitions, too.”

While the annual Putnam Competition is administered to thousands of undergraduate mathematics students across the United States and Canada, in recent years around 70 of its top 100 performers have been MIT students. Since 2000, MIT has placed among the top five teams 23 times.  

MIT’s success in the Putnam exam isn’t surprising. MIT’s recent Putnam coaches are four-time Putnam Fellow Bjorn Poonen and three-time Putnam Fellow Yufei Zhao ’10, PhD ’15. 

MIT is also a top destination for medalists participating in the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) for high school students. Indeed, over the last decade MIT has enrolled almost every American IMO medalist, and more international IMO gold medalists than the universities of any other single country, according to forthcoming research from the Global Talent Fund (GTF), which offers scholarship and training programs for math Olympiad students and coaches.

IMO participation is a strong predictor of future achievement. According to the International Mathematics Olympiad Foundation, about half of Fields Medal winners are IMO alums — but it’s not the only ingredient.

“Recruiting the most talented students is only the beginning. A top-tier university education — with excellent professors, supportive mentors, and an engaging peer community — is key to unlocking their full potential,” says GTF President Ruchir Agarwal. “MIT’s sustained Putnam success shows how the right conditions deliver spectacular results. The catalytic reaction of MIT’s concentration of math talent and the nurturing environment of Building 2 should accelerate advancements in fundamental science for years and decades to come.”

Many MIT mathletes see competitions not only as a way to hone their mathematical aptitude, but also as a way to create a strong sense of community, to help inspire and educate the next generation. 

Chris Peterson SM ’13, director of communications and special projects at MIT Admissions and Student Financial Services, points out that many MIT students with competition math experience volunteer to help run programs for K-12 students including HMMT and Math Prize for Girls, and mentor research projects through the Program for Research in Mathematics, Engineering and Science (PRIMES).

Many of the top scorers are also alumni of the PRIMES high school outreach program. Two of this year’s Putnam Fellows, Liu and Robitaille, are PRIMES alumni, as are four of the next top 11, and six out of the next nine winners, along with many of the students receiving honorable mentions. Pavel Etingof, a math professor who is also PRIMES’ chief research advisor, states that among the 25 top winners, 12 (48 percent) are PRIMES alumni.

“We at PRIMES are very proud of our alumnae’s fantastic showing at the Putnam Competition,” says PRIMES director Slava Gerovitch PhD ’99. “PRIMES serves as a pipeline of mathematical excellence from high school through undergraduate studies, and beyond.”

Along the same lines, a collaboration between the MIT Department of Mathematics and MISTI-Africa has sent MIT students with Olympiad experience abroad during the Independent Activities Period (IAP) to coach high school students who hope to compete for their national teams. 

First-years at MIT also take class 18.A34 (Mathematical Problem Solving), known informally as the Putnam Seminar, not only to hone their Putnam exam skills, but also to make new friends. 

“Many people think of math competitions as primarily a way to identify and recognize talent, which of course they are,” says Peterson. “But the community convened by and through these competitions generates educational externalities that collectively exceed the sum of individual accomplishment.”  

Math Community and Outreach Officer Michael King also notes the camaraderie that forms around the test. 

“My favorite time of the Putnam day is right after the problem session, when the students all jump up, run over to their friends, and begin talking animatedly,” says King, who also took the exam as an undergraduate student. “They cheer each other’s successes, debate problem solutions, commiserate over missed answers, and share funny stories. It’s always amazing to work with the best math students in the world, but the most rewarding aspect is seeing the friendships that develop.”   

A full list of the winners can be found on the Putnam website.

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