<p>Results of Putnam Competition of 2009 (test done the first Sat in Dec.) is out. </p>
<p>A Yale student, Xiaosheng Mu, won 2009 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and become a Putnam Fellow.</p>
<p>Putnam Competition started since 1938, an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college students of the United States and Canada. The top 5 scorers are named Putnam Fellows. The last time a Yale student earned such an honor was in 1989. </p>
<p>Though the comperition is for the undergraduate college students of the United States and Canada, this competition has become so much more fierce recently, since top schools have accepted many international math olympiad gold medal winners.</p>
<p>This is great news for Yale. I believe this fellow is a freshman, so we will see him winning more than once (a college student is allowed to take the test 4 times). He probably can be an inspiration for other students at Yale. He may even be able to help coaching Yale Putnam team. Among HYPSM, Yale is relatively weak in this area.</p>
<p>What makes me curious is why he chose Yale over Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Caltech, etc. to concentrate on math. Surely he couldn’t have gotten rejected from those schools as a 1st place IMO-er with ridiculously amazing stats.</p>
<p>He only applied for Yale, MIT, Stanford and Duke and got accepted & received full financial aid for all of them. He didn’t apply for Harvard nor Princeton nor Caltech.</p>
<p>^ VERY admirable!!! Shows he’s not just into name-dropping and applying to schools for their prestige. Which is a bit surprising, considering that he’s from China, and if you’ll pardon the generalization, the “ooooooh” factor surrounding HYP is HUGE there…</p>
<p>If/when I go to Yale, I’d really love to meet this guy :P</p>
<p>^Applying to Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, etc. doesn’t mean that it’s for prestige. Those are also top math schools and it makes perfect sense for someone in that concentration to apply there, especially if they’re from China like you said. But yes, it still is pretty interesting why he chose Yale because he could get into any university of his choice. Since he is an IMO-er and Putnam Fellow, his reasons are probably legitimate. Maybe he just wants to be the smartest math student at his university without hardcore competition from his classmates?</p>
<p>Ouuuch. I’d rather give him the benefit of the doubt for why he chose Yale. IE, because he likes the balance of math/humanities, or the environment, or the community, etc. etc. Not because he wanted to nurse an ego.</p>
<p>Oh, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant maybe he wants a more relaxed environment to learn, thus without the “hardcore competition from his classmate”.</p>
<p>lol I’m actually in a Math class with him. He strikes me as being a humble and easygoing person, which is remarkable considering how much he has already achieved in these competitions. There isn’t any real competition in the class, which many would find surprising. The problem sets and exams are manageable, and the pace isn’t overwhelming. I’m so glad he’s at Yale, because he’ll be an inspiration to me and to others to give our best. Hopefully this will make the rest of the Yale community take these exams more seriously though. It’s really light in its current state. Two hours of pizza and problems from my experience…hopefully a core of dedicated students will develop from this.</p>
<p>I get what 187 meant. I think the students in the math departments at Princeton, Harvard, Caltech and MIT are more competitive than the students in the math department at Yale. At Yale the math department is first rate but it will be easier to have some balance.</p>
<p>He may make a mistake to go to Yale. The math departments of MIT, Princeton and Harvard appear significantly stronger. Even for this competition, he did so by himself and alone. There is no team forming with him. I also doubt that he is so interested in humanity and literature stuff, since English is his second language, and significant language barrier is there. He is probably mis-informed on his decision.</p>
adorable</p>![http://www.imo-official.org/photos/2008/ThumbImage1826.jpg[/url]](http://www.imo-official.org/photos/2008/ThumbImage1826.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
