Putnam Results at Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College (HMC)
students
first took the Putnam on December 2, 1961, in HMC's fifth year of
operation. Since then, students from Harvey Mudd have been taking it
on a regular basis, and doing very well! In 2003, our team placed 5th
nationally -- HMC is the only
undergraduate college to have landed in the Top 5 in the past 30 years,
and now we have done it twice (in 2003 and 1991). We have placed in the
top 10 five of the last seven years and the top twenty nearly every year
since 1995.In 2000, a school-record 84 Harvey Mudd students took the exam, which is more than 10 percent of the student body! This was more than any other college or university that year. On a per capita basis, on any given year we probably have the highest participation rate and one of the strongest showings in the Top 500 of any school, when adjusted for school size: with five hundred schools in the competition, we regularly claim between 10 and 20 students in the Top 500, and many schools are more than 10 times our size! (See below.)
Through the RIF Endowment, there are annual RIF prize monies given to the Top 3 Putnam scorers from HMC. The RIF Endowment also funds the RIF Scholarship for incoming freshmen of high math ability.
For the last few years, the HMC Math Department has created stylish mugs depicting an actual Putnam problem, and awarded them to all students who took the Putnam. The table below summarizes Harvey Mudd College's performance on this examination in recent years.
| Year | HMC Team Rank Nationwide | # HMC Students Participating |
Top HMC Individual Score (and Rank nationwide) | # HMC Students in Top 200 | # HMC Students in Top 500 (and Rank by numbers in the Top 500, if available) | # Participants / Schools Nationwide |
| 2012 | 11th | 42 | 61 (14th) | 2 (2 in Top 100) | 11 | 4,277 / 578 |
| 2011 | 6th | 44 | 57 (13th) | 9 (7 in top 100) | 14 (7th) | 4,400 / 572 |
| 2010 | 21st | 39 | 79 (31st) | 7 (2 in top 100) | 14 (5th) | 4,296 / 546 |
| 2009 | 12th | 42 | 75 (12th) | 3 (1 in top 100) | 12 (8th) | 4,036 / 546 |
| 2008 | 11th | 45 | 55 (97.5th) | 3 (1 in top 100) | 9 (9th) | 3,627 / 545 |
| 2007 | 8th | 41 | 63 (26.5th) | 3 (2 in top 100) | 7 (9th) | 3,753 / 516 |
| 2006 | 10th | 52 | 59 (56th) | 4 (2 in top 100) | 13 (7th) | 3,640 / 508 |
| 2005 | 23rd | 55 | 40 (128.5th) | 2 | 10 (9th) | 3,545 / 500 |
| 2004 | 11th | 60 | 40 (159.5th) | 3 | 10 (11th) | 3,733 / 515 |
| 2003 | 5th | 56 | 62 (32nd) | 7 (2 in top 100) | 20 (4th) | 3,615 / 479 |
| 2002 | 6th | 61 | 61 (53rd) | 10 (5 in top 100) | 19 (5th) | 3,349 / 476 |
| 2001 | 10th | 77 | 60 (47th) | 7 (3 in top 100) | 25 (4th) | 2,954 / 453 |
| 2000 | 16th | 84 |
70 (13th) | 8 (7 in top 100) | 21 (3rd) | 2,818 / 434 |
| 1999 | 13th | 76 |
40 (79th) | 4 | 22 (3rd) | 2,900 / 431 |
| 1998 | 18th | 60 |
59 (94th) | 4 | 13 (5th) | 2,581 / 419 |
| 1997 | 9th | 39 | 49 (40th) | 5 | 11 | 2,510 |
| 1996 | 14th | 28 | 32 (?) | 6 | ? | 2,407 |
| 1995 | 19th | 16 | 72 (11th) | >=5 | ? | 2,468 |
In 1991, our team placed 3rd in the nation -- the best we've done to date.
Putnam Seminar Page * Putnam Homepage * Mathematics Department * Harvey Mudd College
Maintained by Andrew J. Bernoff
Last Updated on 8-23-04