Data: Putnam competition performance of US domestic students (MIT and all schools)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>In other threads there has been some discussion of the MIT (and non-MIT) Putnam competition results
of US nationals --- information that requires a bit of research on the published list of winners. I've compiled this data from the December 2009 competition and post it here for anyone interested. Enjoy, and please post your own findings if you perform the same exercise for other years of the contest.</p>

<p>Method: take the list of top 5 / next 10 / third 10 / Honorable Mention (for 2009, this was 81 students) and identify US and non-US status from USAMO and IMO qualifier lists, IMO/IOI/IPhO competitor database or other web search. This positively identified all 81 students.</p>

<p>Output: we list all winning students by school and, if non-US, by nation of origin. Nearly all the internationals were olympiad gold medalists for their countries. Students at Canadian universities are listed as Canadian.</p>

<p>William Lowell Putnam competition results, December 2009:</p>

<p>Top 5:</p>

<p>WILLIAM A. JOHNSON U of Washington, Seattle
[China] XIAOSHENG MU Yale
[China] QINGCHUN REN MIT
ARNAV TRIPATHY Harvard
[Canada]YUFEI ZHAO MIT</p>

<p>Next 10 (ranks 6-15)</p>

<p>YAKOV I. BERCHENKO-KOGAN Caltech
SERGEI S. BERNSTEIN MIT
JASON C. BLAND Caltech
[Lithuania] KESTUTIS CESNAVICIUS Rice
PALMER C. MEBANE Harvey Mudd
JOHN V. PARDON Princeton
JACOB N. STEINHARDT MIT
YI SUN Harvard
ALEX ZHAI Harvard
BOHUA ZHAN MIT</p>

<p>Second 10 (ranks 16-25) </p>

<p>[Taiwan] YI-WEI CHAN U of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
JEFFREY CHEN Stanford
MILES D. EDWARDS U of Indiana , Bloomington
SAMUEL S. ELDER Caltech
ZHOU FAN Harvard
[Korea] WHAN GHANG MIT
[Korea] SEOK HYEONG LEE Stanford
[Thailand] PANUPONG PASUPAT MIT
COLIN P. SANDON MIT
ERIC M. STANSIFER Caltech</p>

<p>Honorable Mention (next 56, ranks 26-81)</p>

<p>ZACHARY R. ABEL, Harvard
[Canada] CEDRIC YEN-YU LIN, U of British Columbia
ALEKSANDER ARKHIPOV, MIT
TONY J. LIU, MIT
JOHN D. BERMAN, MIT
XUE (GAKU) LIN, Princeton
TIMOTHY J. BLACK, Caltech
[China] YE LUO, MIT
[Moldova] IURIE BOREICO, Harvard
JEFFREY A. MANNING, Caltech
[Moldova] IVAN BORSENCO, MIT
RICHARD MATTHEW McCUTCHEN, Uof Maryland, Park
GEORGE A. BOXER, Princeton
[India] VIMANG MEHTA, Brown
ZARATHUSTRA E. BRADY, Caltech
[Brazil] HENRIQUE P. OLIVEIRA PINTO, MIT
ROBERT M. BRASE, U of Nebraska, Lincoln
[Korea] DOO SUNG PARK, Caltech
[Brazil]GABRIEL BUJOKAS, MIT
[Korea]JAEHYUN PARK, Stanford
PAUL F. CHRISTIANO, MIT
[Canada]DONG UK (DAVID) RHEE, Uof Waterloo
ROBERT T. CORDWELL, U of New Mexico
DAVID S. ROLNICK, MIT
[China] YU DENG, MIT
DAVID B. RUSH, MIT
PETER Z. DIAO, Stanford
KRISHANU R. SANKAR, MIT
MICHAEL Z. R. GOTTLIEB, Caltech
JONATHAN SCHNEIDER, MIT
RISHI V. GUPTA, MIT
[Canada] XIAOLIN (DANNY) SHI, MIT
ADAM C. HESTERBERG, Princeton
[Korea] JEONG SOO SIM, Stanford
JASON R. HOCH, MIT
CORY B. SMITH, MIT
[Korea] YOUNG HUN JUNG, Stanford
ANDREW L. SOFFER, Washington , St. Louis
[Canada]STEVEN N. KARP, U of Waterloo
[China] XIAOQING TANG, U of Rochester
SHAUNAK KISHORE, MIT
[Thailand] WUTTISAK TRONGSIRIWAT, U of Virginia
ERIC P. KNIGHT, Princeton
DMITRY VAINTROB, Harvard
MIKHAIL P. LAVROV, Duke
AMEYA A. VELINGKER, Harvard
HOLDEN LEE, MIT
[China/Singapore] TENGYAO WANG, Princeton
KEVIN LEE, Harvard
[Korea] YEOIL YOON, Caltech
PAUL D. LEWIS, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor
QIAOCHU YUAN, MIT
[Canada] BOYU LI, of Waterloo
[Romania] ADRIAN I. ZAHARIUC, Princeton
[China] JIZHOU LI, Michigan Technological
[Albania] GJERGJI ZAIMI, Caltech</p>

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<p>Here are some extracts from the above. 2008 data will be posted soon (due to the overlap with 2009, much of the work is already done).</p>

<p>Number of US students:</p>

<p>Top 05 : 02 (40%) Rank 01-05 : 2
Top 15 : 11 (73%) Rank 06-15 : 9
Top 25 : 17 (68%) Rank 16-25 : 6
Top 81 : 50 (61%) Rank 26-81 : 33</p>

<p>By school:</p>

<p>Top5-Next10-Second10-HonMention
1-2-1-4 Harvard
0-3-1-14 MIT
0-2-2-4 Caltech
0-1-0-4 Princeton
0-0-1-1 Stanford
0-1-0-0 Harvey Mudd
1-0-1-6 Other</p>

<p>Note that MIT’s top 5-15-25 results are biased upward, by the large size of its pool.
I read the Harvard/MIT/Caltech tie in the top 25 as indicating, to the extent that one year of data indicates anything, that Harvard has a slightly stronger ability than MIT and Caltech to enroll the very strongest US competitors. Below that, MIT is at or beyond parity with Harvard in its drawing power, and has a huge magnetic pull (or a much larger math department) compared to Caltech. Caltech appears to recruit the USAMO/IMO stars, using scholarships or other means, as its results fall off sharply below the Honorable Mention level (more on that later).</p>

<p>The US-only list is as follows.</p>

<p>Top 5:
WILLIAM A. JOHNSON U of Washington, Seattle
ARNAV TRIPATHY Harvard</p>

<p>Next 10 (ranks 6-15)
YAKOV I. BERCHENKO-KOGAN Caltech
SERGEI S. BERNSTEIN MIT
JASON C. BLAND Caltech
PALMER C. MEBANE Harvey Mudd
JOHN V. PARDON Princeton
JACOB N. STEINHARDT MIT
YI SUN Harvard
ALEX ZHAI Harvard
BOHUA ZHAN MIT</p>

<p>Second 10 (ranks 16-25)
JEFFREY CHEN Stanford
MILES D. EDWARDS U of Indiana , Bloomington
SAMUEL S. ELDER Caltech
ZHOU FAN Harvard
COLIN P. SANDON MIT
ERIC M. STANSIFER Caltech</p>

<p>Honorable Mention (next 56, ranks 26-81)
ZACHARY R. ABEL, Harvard
ALEKSANDER ARKHIPOV, MIT
TONY J. LIU, MIT
JOHN D. BERMAN, MIT
XUE (GAKU) LIN, Princeton
TIMOTHY J. BLACK, Caltech
JEFFREY A. MANNING, Caltech
RICHARD MATTHEW McCUTCHEN, Uof Maryland, Park
GEORGE A. BOXER, Princeton
ZARATHUSTRA E. BRADY, Caltech
ROBERT M. BRASE, U of Nebraska, Lincoln
PAUL F. CHRISTIANO, MIT
ROBERT T. CORDWELL, U of New Mexico
DAVID S. ROLNICK, MIT
DAVID B. RUSH, MIT
PETER Z. DIAO, Stanford
KRISHANU R. SANKAR, MIT
MICHAEL Z. R. GOTTLIEB, Caltech
JONATHAN SCHNEIDER, MIT
RISHI V. GUPTA, MIT
ADAM C. HESTERBERG, Princeton
JASON R. HOCH, MIT
CORY B. SMITH, MIT
ANDREW L. SOFFER, Washington , St. Louis
SHAUNAK KISHORE, MIT
ERIC P. KNIGHT, Princeton
DMITRY VAINTROB, Harvard
MIKHAIL P. LAVROV, Duke
AMEYA A. VELINGKER, Harvard
HOLDEN LEE, MIT
KEVIN LEE, Harvard
PAUL D. LEWIS, U of Michigan, Ann Arbor
QIAOCHU YUAN, MIT</p>