MIT Students Continue Putnam Math Competition Winning Streak

For the fifth time in the history of the annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, and for the fifth year in a row, MIT swept all five of the contest’s top spots.

The highest scorers are named Putnam Fellows: Senior Brian Liu and juniors Papon Lapate and Luke Robitaille are now three-time Putnam Fellows, sophomore Jiangqi Dai earned his second win, and first-year Qiao Sun earned his first. Each receives a $2,500 award. This is also the fifth time that any school has had the top 5 students being named Putnam Fellows.

Also coming in first was MIT’s team, made up of Lapate, Robitaille, and Sun; Lapate and Robitaille were also on last year’s winning team. This is MIT’s ninth first-place win in the past 11 competitions. Teams are based on the three top scorers from each institution. The institution with the first-place team receives a $25,000 award, and each team member receives $1,000. 

First-year Jessica Wan was the top-scoring woman, finishing in the top 25, which earned her the $1,000 Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Prize. She is the eighth MIT student to receive this honor since the award was created in 1992. This is the sixth year in a row that an MIT woman has won the prize.

In total, 69 MIT students scored within the top 100. Beyond the top 5 scorers, MIT took 9 of the next 11 spots (each receiving a $1,000 award), and 7 of the next 9 spots (earning $250 awards). Of the 80 receiving honorable mentions, 48 were from MIT. A total of 3,988 students took the exam in December, including 222 MIT students.

The Putnam is known for its difficulty: a perfect score is 120. This year’s top score was 90, while the median score this year was just 2 points. While many MIT students scored well, the Department of Mathematics is proud of everyone who just takes the exam. 

Congratulations to everyone who participated in this year’s exam!

A full list of the winners can be found on the Putnam website.