<p>"Three undergraduates from Princeton's Department of Mathematics have won the team prize in the 67th William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Ana Caraiani, Andrei Negut and Aaron Pixton took top honors for Princeton for the first time in the contest's history, beating out 507 other university teams from the United States and Canada."</p>
<p>Gooooooooo Princeton!!!!!</p>
<p>First Place Finishes 1939-2006 (68 competitions)
Harvard 25 times
Caltech 9 times
MIT 5 times
Wash U. St. Louis 4 times</p>
<p>Top Five Finishes 1939-2006 (68 competitions)
Harvard 53 times
MIT 38 times
Caltech 28 times
Princeton 26 times
U. Toronto 18 times
U. Waterloo 17 times
U. Chicago 12 times
Duke, Yale, Wash U. St. Louis 11 times
Berkeley, Cornell 9 times</p>
<p>Readers unfamiliar with the Putnam should note its odd scoring system before noting MIT and Princeton's relative lack of first-place finishes. In the Putnam, schools have to designate who's going to score for their team BEFORE the test. If a school designates students that happen to do worse than other non-designated schools, too bad! The participants who did better aren't recognized in the team score. This actually (not for the first time, either!) hurt MIT this year, and had they picked their team members better, they would have taken first place. </p>
<p>But congratulations to Princeton--it's something we should all be proud of!</p>
<p>Oh ske293, we see your point. Yes, Harvard has done very well in the competition and you should be proud of that. More recently, however, the top five finishes look like this:</p>
<p>Top Five Finishes in the Last 10 Years</p>
<p>9 --- Harvard
8 --- MIT, Duke
6 --- Princeton</p>
<p>Top Five Finishes in the Last 5 Years</p>
<p>4 --- Princeton
4 --- Harvard
4 --- MIT
4 --- Duke</p>
<p>Now don't be worried that anyone is suggesting that Harvard doesn't have a great math department and plenty of top notch math students. Also, I understand that Harvard has taken this competition quite seriously for many years. As noted in the Wikipedia article:</p>
<p>"While some may see this as a rough gauge of the level of the undergraduate Mathematical programs at various institutions, a number of factors militate against this assumption:</p>
<p>-- Some institutions have participated for many years while others are relative latecomers. </p>
<p>-- Some university teams actively train for the competition with faculty help and reference to past years' questions; at others, there is a student club which practices ? but at many institutions, there is no formal preparation at all. </p>
<p>-- As described earlier in this article, it is possible for the official members of a team to not score as highly as others from the same university who have not been designated members of the official team. </p>
<p>-- Finally, and most importantly, "contest math" is seen by many as quite different from original mathematical research "the primary aim of most university math departments" and is not necessarily the best predictor of it.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putnam_competition%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putnam_competition</a></p>
<p>So, congratulations to Princeton this year and to Harvard for its many years of fine performances!</p>
<p>Congrats to the Tiger Putnam team.</p>
<p>"Also, I understand that Harvard has taken this competition quite seriously for many years."</p>
<p>If you are implying that Harvard trains for the Putnam Competition, it does not, FYI. MIT does, however.</p>
<p>If you are implying that Harvard makes a big deal of all the wins, it does not. Most people at Harvard don't even know about the Putnam. Only a small group of math and physics majors know about it and show up to take the test each year. Harvard's wins don't make it to the university website, either. There's a tiny poster that goes up outside the math administrative office in the Science Center. That's all.</p>
<p>Harvard wins largely because they are able to recruit the best in high school math competitions. The juniors all take note of where the best seniors are going to college next year, which is usually Harvard more than any other school, and not surprisingly, they make the same choice.</p>
<p>Does Princeton train for the Putnam?</p>
<p>Is ske the new username for the old byerly troll?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Harvard wins largely because they are able to recruit the best in high school math competitions. The juniors all take note of where the best seniors are going to college next year, which is usually Harvard more than any other school, and not surprisingly, they make the same choice.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>talk about retarded assumptions</p>