Ranking of colleges by number of Putnam winners in top 5

<p>Given that this competition is for undergraduates, it seems appropriate for this forum. </p>

<p>For this ranking, i'll be grouping together individual Putnam fellows and groups (i.e. if Angelo State is listed with one individual fellow, and one team winner, i'll list list it as "Angelo State: 2") </p>

<p>Ties, are ranked equally. When ties occur between universities, they will be listed alphabetically (although when universities are tied one is 'ranked' higher than another, this is due to MS Word listing them as such, rather than a deliberate action on my part.)</p>

<p>This ranking is not all inclusive. Some universities are ommitted. Let me know if i've omitted any noteworthy universities from the ranking (e.g. top 5/10)</p>

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[quote]

  1. Harvard: 163
  2. MIT: 99
  3. Caltech: 58
  4. Princeton: 50
  5. UTorronto: 43
  6. UWaterloo: 27
  7. Berkeley: 27
  8. Yale: 21
  9. Duke: 20
  10. CUNY: 16
  11. Cornell: 14
  12. Wustl: 14
  13. Columbia: 13
  14. Stanford: 12
  15. MSU: 10
  16. CMU: 8
  17. NYU: 7
  18. Penn: 7
  19. Dartmouth: 5
  20. UCD: 5
  21. UCLA: 5
  22. Michigan: 4
  23. Cooper Union: 2
  24. Swarthmore: 2
  25. UCSB: 2
  26. Virginia: 2
  27. Stony Brook: 1
  28. UNC: 1
  29. Wesleyan: 1
  30. Williams College: 1

[/quote]
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<p>Putnam</a> Competition</p>

<p>Observations:</p>

<p>*For having the stereotype of being a pre-professional school, Duke alums do very well in this ranking.</p>

<p>*MSU has performed better than expected in the Putnam ranking than rival UMichigan.</p>

<p>*Notable absences among prestigious universities include JHU, Brown, Vanderbilt, Gtech, Emory, and Georgetown. Among the UCs, considering that Davis does as well as UCLA, UCSD's absence is noteworthy.</p>

<p>*Canadian universities have done fairly well historically in the competition, taking 2 of the top 6 of the universities listed in this ranking.</p>

<p>Why would someone interested in majoring in math go to Emory?</p>

<p>If ties are “ranked equally”, why is UWaterloo above Berkeley?</p>

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<p>The same could be said for a number of other universities listed in the ranking, including Stony Brook (which made its first appearance in the ranking in 2012) UC Davis, Wustl, etc.</p>

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<p>Oops, I noticed that and edited that in the Word document. Must have forgotten to repaste it in the post box. If any of the mods would be kind enough to edit my post and switch Waterloo and Berkeley, I’d appreciate it.</p>

<p>UC Davis and Stony Brook both have good math programs. Apart from Columbia and possibly Cornell, SBU has the best math department in New York. Davis too is excellent for mathematics.</p>

<p>Emory on the other hand is not. I can easily see a potential Putnam winner exhausting all of the math offerings by the time junior year rolls along. Most math majors wouldn’t consider Emory (just as most philosophy majors won’t consider Cal Tech), so its lack of inclusion doesn’t surprise me in the least. The same goes for Georgetown and possibly Vanderbilt. </p>

<p>Perhaps some of these schools emphasize the Putnam competition more than others. That might explain why Georgia Tech, one of the Southeastern STEM powerhouses, lacks any Putnam winners. It might be that undergrads either aren’t aware of its existence, or don’t want to bother with starting up an organization devoted to “Putnam prep”.</p>

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<p>Not sure what your criteria for ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ is. But other universities that i listed would also fall into these categories (JHU, Brown, etc.) but aren’t represented within the ranking.</p>

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<p>How good are the LACs i listed in math? Do Wesleyan, Williams, Swarthmore, or Cooper Union provide more breadth in mathematics than Emory does?</p>

<p>Cooper Union’s focus is on engineering, art, and architecture; math is offered as a minor (and as a supporting subject for engineering).</p>