William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to the Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college

College

College is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...

 student

Student

The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb studēre, meaning "to direct one's zeal at"; hence a student could be described as "one who directs zeal at a subject"...

s of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, awarding scholarship

Scholarship

A scholarship is an award of access to an institution, or a financial aid award for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

s and cash prizes ranging from $250 to $2,500 for the top students and $5,000 to $25,000 for the top schools. The competition was founded in 1927 by Elizabeth Lowell Putnam

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in the late 19th century, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Lowell of Boston...

 in memory of her husband William Lowell Putnam

William Lowell Putnam

William Lowell Putnam II was an American lawyer and banker....

, who, while alive was an advocate of intercollegiate intellectual competition.

The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, often abbreviated to the Putnam Competition, is an annual mathematics competition for undergraduate college

College

College is a term most often used today to denote degree awarding tertiary educational institution. More broadly, it can be the name of any group of colleagues, for example, an electoral college, a College of Arms or the College of Cardinals...

 student

Student

The word student is etymologically derived through Middle English from the Latin second-type conjugation verb studēre, meaning "to direct one's zeal at"; hence a student could be described as "one who directs zeal at a subject"...

s of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and Canada

Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, awarding scholarship

Scholarship

A scholarship is an award of access to an institution, or a financial aid award for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

s and cash prizes ranging from $250 to $2,500 for the top students and $5,000 to $25,000 for the top schools. The competition was founded in 1927 by Elizabeth Lowell Putnam

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam was born in Brookline, Massachusetts in the late 19th century, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Lowell of Boston...

 in memory of her husband William Lowell Putnam

William Lowell Putnam

William Lowell Putnam II was an American lawyer and banker....

, who, while alive was an advocate of intercollegiate intellectual competition. The exam has been offered annually since 1938 and is administered by the Mathematical Association of America

Mathematical Association of America

The Mathematical Association of America is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level...

.

Current Competition layout

The Putnam competition now takes place on the first Saturday in December, and consists of two three-hour sittings separated by a lunch break. The test is supervised by faculty members at the participating schools. Each competitor attempts to solve twelve problems, which can typically be solved with only basic knowledge of college mathematics but which require extensive creative thinking.

Each of the twelve questions is worth 10 points, and the most frequent scores above zero are 10 points, for a complete solution; 9 points, for a nearly complete solution; and 1 point, for the beginnings of a solution. In earlier years, the twelve questions were worth one point each, with absolutely no partial credit given. The examination is considered to be very difficult: it is typically attempted by students specializing in mathematics, but the median

Median

In probability theory and statistics, a median is described as the number separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to highest...

 score is usually one or two points out of 120 possible, and there have been only three perfect scores . In 2003, of the 3,615 students taking the exam, 1024 (28%) scored 10 or more points, and 42 points was sufficient to make the top 102.

At a participating college, as many students as wish to take part in the exam may compete; but the school's official team consists of three individuals whom it designates in advance. A team's score is the sum of the ranks of its three team members, with the lowest cumulative rank winning. It is entirely possible, even commonplace at some institutions, for the eventual results to show that the "wrong" team was picked—i.e. that some students not on the official team outscored an official team member. For example, in 2006, MIT had three of the top five scorers on the examination and nine of the top fifteen, while Princeton had just two students in the top fifteen; yet Princeton took first place among teams while MIT took third.

The top five teams win $25,000, $20,000, $15,000, $10,000, and $5,000, in that order, with team members receiving $1,000, $800, $600, $400, and $200, respectively.

The top five individual scorers are named Putnam Fellows and awarded $2,500. One of them is also awarded the William Lowell Putnam Prize Scholarship of $12,000 plus tuition

Tuition

Tuition means "instruction" or "teaching." In American English, the term "tuition" is often used to refer to a fee charged for educational instruction; especially at a formal institution of learning or by a private tutor usually in the form of one-to-one tuition...

 for graduate study at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...

. Sixth through 15th place individuals receive $1,000 and the next ten receive $250. The names of the top 100 students are published in the American Mathematical Monthly

American Mathematical Monthly

The American Mathematical Monthly is a mathematical journal founded by Benjamin Finkel in 1894. It is currently published 10 times each year by the Mathematical Association of America....

. Many Putnam Fellows have gone on to become distinguished researchers in mathematics and other fields, including three Fields Medal

Fields Medal

The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union, a meeting that takes place every four years. The Fields Medal is often viewed as the top honor a mathematician can receive. It...

ists—Milnor

John Milnor

John Willard Milnor is an American mathematician known for his work in differential topology, K-theory, and dynamical systems, and for his influential books. He won the Fields Medal in 1962 and Wolf Prize in 1989. As of 2005, Milnor is a distinguished professor at the State University of New York...

, Mumford

David Mumford

David Bryant Mumford is a mathematician known for distinguished work in algebraic geometry, and then for research into vision and pattern theory...

, and Quillen

Daniel Quillen

Daniel Gray "Dan" Quillen is an American mathematician and a Fields Medalist.From 1984 to 2006 he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford...

—and two Nobel laureates in physics—Feynman

Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics...

 and Wilson

Kenneth G. Wilson

Kenneth Geddes Wilson is an American theoretical physicist.As an undergraduate at Harvard, he was a Putnam Fellow. He earned his PhD from Caltech in 1961, studying under Murray Gell-Mann....

.

The competition is held on the first Saturday in December, most recently December 6, 2008. The 2009 exam will be held on December 5.

Top-scoring teams

Year	First	Second	Third	Fourth	Fifth
1938	Toronto University of Toronto The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the...	UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...	Columbia Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
1939	Brooklyn College Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New York...	MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research...	Mississippi Woman's
1940	Toronto	Yale Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...	Columbia Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City...
1941	Brooklyn College	UPenn University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and is one of several institutions that claims to have been the first university in America...	MIT
1942	Toronto	Yale	MIT	City College of NY City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
1946	Toronto	MIT	Brooklyn College	Carnegie Tech Carnegie Institute of Technology The Carnegie Institute of Technology , one of the predecessors to Carnegie Mellon University, was founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. His stated intention was to build a "first class technical school" in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the children of local steel...
1947	Harvard Harvard University Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...	Yale	Columbia	UPenn
1948	Brooklyn College	Toronto	Harvard	City College of NY  and  McGill McGill University McGill University is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
1949	Harvard	Toronto	Carnegie Tech	City College of NY
1950	Caltech California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. The Institute maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering, and operates and manages NASA's neighboring Jet Propulsion Laboratory...	Harvard	NYU New York University New York University is a private, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...	Toronto
1951	Cornell Cornell University Cornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students...	Harvard	Cooper Union Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a privately-funded college in Downtown Manhattan, New York City. Cooper Union, founded in 1859, established a radical new model of American higher education...	City College of NY
1952	Queen's Queen's University Queen's University, generally referred to simply as Queen's, is a coeducational, non-sectarian, research intensive, public university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. In 2008, Queen's maintained its status as one of the top universities in Canada.The Church of Scotland established Queen's...	Brooklyn Polytech	Harvard	MIT
1953	Harvard	City College of NY	Cornell	UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...
1954	Cornell	Harvard	MIT	Toronto
1955	Harvard	Toronto	Yale	Kenyon Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of the The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private institution of higher education in Ohio. The campus is noted for its Collegiate Gothic...
1956	Harvard	Columbia	Queen's	MIT
1957	Harvard	Columbia	Cornell	Caltech
1958 (Spring)	Brooklyn Polytech	Harvard	Toronto	Manitoba University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is also Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution.. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed in...
1958 (Fall)	Harvard	Toronto	Caltech	Cornell
1959	Brooklyn Polytech	Caltech	Toronto	Harvard	Case Tech
1960	UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines...	Harvard	MIT	Michigan State Michigan State University Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act. Its alumni include at least six winners of the...	Cornell
1961	Michigan State Michigan State University Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act. Its alumni include at least six winners of the...	MIT	Caltech	Harvard	Dartmouth Dartmouth College Dartmouth College is a private, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Incorporated as "Trustees of Dartmouth College," it is a member of the Ivy League and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution...
1962	Caltech	Dartmouth	Harvard	Queen's	UCLA University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles is a research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. It was founded in 1919 and is the second-oldest general-purpose campus in the University of California system...
1963	Michigan State	Brooklyn College	UPenn	Caltech	MIT
1964	Caltech	MIT	Harvard	Case Tech	UC Berkeley
1965	Harvard	MIT	Toronto	Princeton Princeton University Princeton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....	Caltech
1966	Harvard	MIT	Chicago University of Chicago The University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...	Michigan University of Michigan The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...	Princeton
1967	Michigan State	Caltech	Harvard	MIT	Michigan
1968	MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research...	Waterloo University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...	UCLA	Michigan State	Kansas University of Kansas The University of Kansas , the State of Kansas Flagship university , is a public research university with campuses located in Lawrence, Kansas City, and Overland Park, Kansas with the main campus being located atop Mount Oread in Lawrence...
1969	MIT	Rice Rice University William Marsh Rice University is a private coeducational research university located in Houston, Texas, United States...	Chicago	Harvard	Yale
1970	Chicago University of Chicago The University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...	MIT	Toronto	Illinois Tech Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology , commonly called Illinois Tech, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law...	Caltech
1971	Caltech	Chicago	Harvard	UC Davis University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis is a public research university located in Davis, California, and one of ten campuses in the University of California system. Commonly referred to as UC Davis, the school was originally established in 1905 as the University Farm, an extension of UC Berkeley. UC...	MIT
1972	Caltech	Oberlin Oberlin College Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1833 by Presbyterian ministers, and is home to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, making it the only top-ranked liberal arts college with a top-ranked conservatory...	Harvard	Swarthmore Swarthmore College Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....	MIT
1973	Caltech	British Columbia University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia is a Canadian public research university with campuses in the Greater Vancouver area and in Kelowna, British Columbia...	Chicago	Harvard	Princeton
1974	Waterloo University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...	Chicago	Caltech	MIT	British Columbia
1975	Caltech	Chicago	MIT	Princeton	Harvard
1976	Caltech	Washington U in StL Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853 and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than one hundred and twenty five nations...	Princeton	Case Western Reserve Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...   and  MIT
1977	Washington U in StL Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853 and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than one hundred and twenty five nations...	UC Davis	Caltech	Princeton	MIT
1978	Case Western Reserve Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...	Washington U in StL	Waterloo	Harvard	Caltech
1979	MIT	Caltech	Princeton	Stanford	Waterloo
1980	Washington U in StL	Harvard	Maryland University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland...	Chicago	UC Berkeley
1981	Washington U in StL	Princeton	Harvard	Stanford Stanford University The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...	Maryland
1982	Harvard	Waterloo	Caltech	Yale	Princeton
1983	Caltech	Washington U in StL	Waterloo	Princeton	Chicago
1984	UC Davis University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis is a public research university located in Davis, California, and one of ten campuses in the University of California system. Commonly referred to as UC Davis, the school was originally established in 1905 as the University Farm, an extension of UC Berkeley. UC...   and  Washington U in StL		Harvard	Princeton	Yale
1985	Harvard	Princeton	UC Berkeley	Rice	Waterloo
1986	Harvard	Washington U in StL	UC Berkeley	Yale	MIT
1987	Harvard	Princeton	Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since its inception, Carnegie Mellon has grown into a world-renowned institution, with numerous programs that are frequently ranked among the best in the world...	UC Berkeley	MIT
1988	Harvard	Princeton	Rice	Waterloo	Caltech
1989	Harvard	Princeton	Waterloo	Yale	Rice
1990	Harvard	Duke Duke University Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892...	Waterloo	Yale	Washington U in StL
1991	Harvard	Waterloo	Harvey Mudd Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges....	Stanford	Yale
1992	Harvard	Toronto	Waterloo	Princeton	Cornell
1993	Duke Duke University Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892...	Harvard	Miami University Miami University Miami University is a coeducational public university located in the college town of Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809 and is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and second oldest in the U.S. state of Ohio. Miami is cited as one of the eight original Public...	MIT	Michigan
1994	Harvard	Cornell	MIT	Princeton	Waterloo
1995	Harvard	Cornell	MIT	Toronto	Princeton
1996	Duke	Princeton	Harvard	Washington U in StL	Caltech
1997	Harvard	Duke	Princeton	MIT	Washington U in StL
1998	Harvard	MIT	Princeton	Caltech	Waterloo
1999	Waterloo	Harvard	Duke	Michigan	Chicago
2000	Duke	MIT	Harvard	Caltech	Toronto
2001	Harvard	MIT	Duke	UC Berkeley	Stanford
2002	Harvard	Princeton	Duke	UC Berkeley	Stanford
2003	MIT	Harvard	Duke	Caltech	Harvey Mudd
2004	MIT	Princeton	Duke	Waterloo	Caltech
2005	Harvard	Princeton	Duke	MIT	Waterloo
2006	Princeton	Harvard	MIT	Toronto	Chicago
2007	Harvard	Princeton	MIT	Stanford	Duke
2008	Harvard	Princeton	MIT	Stanford	Caltech

Teams ranked by historical performance

Below is a table of teams by the number of appearances in the top five and number of titles. Where multiple teams have the same number of appearances in the top five, they are ranked by number of championships, and then listed in alphabetical order.

The following table lists Teams finishing in Top Five ( competition):

Top Five	Team (s)
54	Harvard Harvard University Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
39	MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research...
29	Caltech California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. The Institute maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering, and operates and manages NASA's neighboring Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
27	Princeton Princeton University Princeton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
18	Toronto University of Toronto The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the...
17	Waterloo University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
12	Duke Duke University Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892...
11	Chicago University of Chicago The University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D... , Washington U in StL Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853 and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than one hundred and twenty five nations... , Yale Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
9	UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines... , Cornell Cornell University Cornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students...
7	Stanford Stanford University The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...
5	Brooklyn College Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New York... , City College of NY City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning... , Michigan State Michigan State University Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act. Its alumni include at least six winners of the...
4	Case Western Reserve Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...  (including former Case Tech), Columbia Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City... , Michigan University of Michigan The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world... , Rice Rice University William Marsh Rice University is a private coeducational research university located in Houston, Texas, United States...
3	Brooklyn Polytech, UC Davis University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis is a public research university located in Davis, California, and one of ten campuses in the University of California system. Commonly referred to as UC Davis, the school was originally established in 1905 as the University Farm, an extension of UC Berkeley. UC... , Carnegie Mellon Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since its inception, Carnegie Mellon has grown into a world-renowned institution, with numerous programs that are frequently ranked among the best in the world...  (including former Carnegie Tech Carnegie Institute of Technology The Carnegie Institute of Technology , one of the predecessors to Carnegie Mellon University, was founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. His stated intention was to build a "first class technical school" in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for the children of local steel... ), Queen's Queen's University Queen's University, generally referred to simply as Queen's, is a coeducational, non-sectarian, research intensive, public university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. In 2008, Queen's maintained its status as one of the top universities in Canada.The Church of Scotland established Queen's... , UPenn University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania is a private research university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and is one of several institutions that claims to have been the first university in America...
2	British Columbia University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia is a Canadian public research university with campuses in the Greater Vancouver area and in Kelowna, British Columbia... , Dartmouth Dartmouth College Dartmouth College is a private, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Incorporated as "Trustees of Dartmouth College," it is a member of the Ivy League and one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution... , Harvey Mudd Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges.... , Maryland University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park is a public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is the flagship institution of the University System of Maryland... , UCLA University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles is a research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in the United States. It was founded in 1919 and is the second-oldest general-purpose campus in the University of California system...
1	Cooper Union Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art is a privately-funded college in Downtown Manhattan, New York City. Cooper Union, founded in 1859, established a radical new model of American higher education... , Illinois Tech Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology , commonly called Illinois Tech, is a private Ph.D.-granting university located in Chicago, Illinois, with programs in engineering, science, psychology, architecture, business, communications, industrial technology, information technology, design, and law... , Kansas University of Kansas The University of Kansas , the State of Kansas Flagship university , is a public research university with campuses located in Lawrence, Kansas City, and Overland Park, Kansas with the main campus being located atop Mount Oread in Lawrence... , Kenyon Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of the The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private institution of higher education in Ohio. The campus is noted for its Collegiate Gothic... , Manitoba University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba, in Winnipeg, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is also Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution.. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed in... , McGill McGill University McGill University is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university... , Miami University Miami University Miami University is a coeducational public university located in the college town of Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809 and is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and second oldest in the U.S. state of Ohio. Miami is cited as one of the eight original Public... ,  Mississippi Woman's, NYU New York University New York University is a private, nonsectarian, research university in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan... , Oberlin College Oberlin College Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1833 by Presbyterian ministers, and is home to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, making it the only top-ranked liberal arts college with a top-ranked conservatory... , Swarthmore Swarthmore College Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students. The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia....

The following table lists teams that finished in the top five since 1990 ( competition):

Top Five	Team (s)
18	Harvard Harvard University Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
13	MIT
12	Duke Duke University Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892... , Princeton Princeton University Princeton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges....
8	Waterloo University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
6	Caltech California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. The Institute maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering, and operates and manages NASA's neighboring Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
5	Stanford Stanford University The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university located in Stanford, California, United States...
4	Toronto University of Toronto The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the...
3	Cornell Cornell University Cornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students... , Washington U in StL Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853 and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than one hundred and twenty five nations...
2	Chicago University of Chicago The University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D... , UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines... , Harvey Mudd Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges.... , University of Michigan University of Michigan The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world... , Yale Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Yale has produced many notable alumni, including five...
1	Miami University Miami University Miami University is a coeducational public university located in the college town of Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809 and is the 10th oldest public university in the United States and second oldest in the U.S. state of Ohio. Miami is cited as one of the eight original Public...

The following table lists Teams with First place finishes ( competition):

First Place	Team (s)
27	Harvard Harvard University Harvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
9	Caltech California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. The Institute maintains a strong emphasis on the natural sciences and engineering, and operates and manages NASA's neighboring Jet Propulsion Laboratory...
5	MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research...
4	Toronto University of Toronto The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated north of the city's Financial District on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. The university was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in the... ,Washington U in StL Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis is a nonsectarian, private research university located in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1853 and named for George Washington, the university has students and faculty from all fifty U.S. states and more than one hundred and twenty five nations...
3	Brooklyn College Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New York... , Duke Duke University Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892... , Michigan State Michigan State University Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act. Its alumni include at least six winners of the...
2	Brooklyn Polytech, Cornell Cornell University Cornell University is a private university located in Ithaca, New York, USA, that is a member of the Ivy League.Cornell counts more than 255,000 living alumni, 28 Rhodes Scholars and 41 Nobel laureates affiliated with the university as faculty or students... , Waterloo University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
1	UC Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley offers some 300 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines... , UC Davis University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis is a public research university located in Davis, California, and one of ten campuses in the University of California system. Commonly referred to as UC Davis, the school was originally established in 1905 as the University Farm, an extension of UC Berkeley. UC... , Case Western Reserve Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA... , Chicago University of Chicago The University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D... , Princeton Princeton University Princeton University a private university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League and is considered one of the Colonial Colleges.... , Queen's Queen's University Queen's University, generally referred to simply as Queen's, is a coeducational, non-sectarian, research intensive, public university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. In 2008, Queen's maintained its status as one of the top universities in Canada.The Church of Scotland established Queen's...

Putnam Fellows

Since the first competition, the top five (or six, in case of a tie) scorers on the examination have been named Putnam Fellows. Within the top five, Putnam Fellows are not ranked. Students are not allowed to participate in the Putnam Competition more than four times. For example, if a high school senior chooses to officially participate, he/she effectively chooses to forfeit one of his/her years of eligibility in college (see Gabriel D. Carroll

Gabriel D. Carroll

Gabriel Drew Carroll is a recent graduate of Harvard and current MIT student who received numerous awards in mathematics while a student. Carroll won two gold medals and a silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad, earning a perfect score at the 2001 International Mathematical...

). This makes it even more of a remarkable feat to become a Putnam Fellow four times. In the history of Competition, only seven students have been Putnam Fellows four times, with sixteen others winning the award three times. The following table lists these students:

Name	Team	Years
Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith is a cryptographer and mathematician. He was involved in the design of the Data Encryption Standard block cipher at IBM, particularly the design of the S-boxes, strengthening them against differential cryptanalysis...	MIT	1968	1969	1970	1971
Arthur Rubin Arthur Rubin Arthur Leonard Rubin is an American mathematician who has earned a place among the five top-ranked undergraduate competitors in the William Lowell Putnam Competition four times , a feat matched by only six other undergraduate students since the first competition in 1938...	Purdue Purdue University Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six campuses within the Purdue University System... , Caltech	1970	1971	1972	1973
Bjorn Poonen Bjorn Poonen Bjorn Poonen is a mathematician and is currently the Claude Shannon Professor of Mathematics at MIT.His research is primarily in number theory and algebraic geometry, but he has occasionally published in other subjects such as probability and computer science....	Harvard	1985	1986	1987	1988
Ravi D. Vakil	Toronto	1988	1989	1990	1991
Gabriel D. Carroll Gabriel D. Carroll Gabriel Drew Carroll is a recent graduate of Harvard and current MIT student who received numerous awards in mathematics while a student. Carroll won two gold medals and a silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad, earning a perfect score at the 2001 International Mathematical...	UC Berkeley, Harvard	2000	2001	2002	2003
Reid W. Barton Reid W. Barton Reid W. Barton is currently a graduate student at Harvard University in mathematics, an MIT alumni, and one of the all-time greatest performers in the International Science Olympiads.- Biography:Barton is the son of two environmental engineers...	MIT	2001	2002	2003	2004
Daniel Kane	MIT	2003	2004	2005	2006
Edward L. Kaplan	Carnegie Tech	1939	1940	1941
Andrew M. Gleason Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason was an American mathematician and the eponym of Gleason's theorem. He graduated from Yale University in 1942, and subsequently joined the United States Navy, where he was part of a team responsible for breaking Japanese codes during World War II...	Yale	1940	1941	1942
Donald J. Newman	City College of NY	1948	1949	1950
James B. Herreshoff IV	UC Berkeley	1951	1952	1953
Samuel Jacob Klein	City College of NY	1953	1959	1960
Randall L. Dougherty	UC Berkeley	1978	1979	1980
Eric D. Carlson	Michigan State	1980	1982	1983
David W. Ash	Waterloo	1981	1982	1983
Noam D. Elkies Noam Elkies Noam D. Elkies is an American mathematician and chess master.At age 14, Elkies received a gold medal with perfect score at the International Mathematical Olympiad...	Columbia	1982	1983	1984
David J. Grabiner	Princeton	1986	1987	1988
David J. Moews	Harvard	1986	1987	1988
J. P. Grossman	Toronto	1993	1994	1995
Kiran S. Kedlaya	Harvard	1993	1994	1995
Lenhard L. Ng	Harvard	1993	1994	1995
Ciprian Manolescu Ciprian Manolescu Ciprian Manolescu is a Romanian mathematician. He is presently an Associate Professor in the mathematics department at the University of California, Los Angeles....	Harvard	1997	1998	2000
Aaron C. Pixton	Princeton	2004	2005	2007

The following table lists all Putnam fellows from 1938 to present, with the years they placed in the top five.

Name (Team)	Year (s)
George W. Mackey (Rice)	1938
Irving Kaplansky Irving Kaplansky Irving Kaplansky was a Canadian mathematician. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada after his parents emigrated from Poland and attended the University of Toronto as an undergraduate. After receiving his Ph.D...  (Toronto)	1938
Michael J. Norris (College of St. Thomas University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) The University of St. Thomas is a coeducational archdiocesan Roman Catholic institution of higher learning based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1885 as a Catholic seminary, it is named after St. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Catholic theologian and philosopher who is the patron saint of... )	1938
Robert W. Gibson (Fort Hays Kansas State)	1938
Bernard Sherman (Brooklyn College)	1938, 1939
Abraham Hillman (Brooklyn College)	1939
Richard P. Feynman (MIT)	1939
William Nierenberg William Nierenberg William Aaron Nierenberg was an American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1965 through 1986.- Life and career :...  (City College of NY)	1939
Edward L. Kaplan (Carnegie Tech)	1939, 1940, 1941
John Cotton Maynard (Toronto)	1940
Robert Maughan Snow (George Washington George Washington University The George Washington University is a private, coeducational university located in Washington, D.C... )	1940
W. J. R. Crosby (Toronto)	1940
Andrew M. Gleason Andrew Gleason Andrew Mattei Gleason was an American mathematician and the eponym of Gleason's theorem. He graduated from Yale University in 1942, and subsequently joined the United States Navy, where he was part of a team responsible for breaking Japanese codes during World War II...  (Yale)	1940, 1941, 1942
Paul C. Rosenbloom (UPenn)	1941
Richard F. Arens (UCLA)	1941
Samuel I. Askovitz (UPenn)	1941
Harold Victor Lyons (Toronto)	1942
Harvey Cohn (City College of NY)	1942
Melvin A. Preston (Toronto)	1942
Warren S. Loud (MIT)	1942
Donald A. Fraser (Toronto)	1946
Eugenio Calabi Eugenio Calabi Eugenio Calabi is a Jewish Italian American mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in differential geometry, partial differential equations and their applications....  (MIT)	1946
Felix Browder Felix Browder Felix E. Browder is a United States mathematician. He is the eldest son of Earl Browder and brother of William Browder.Felix Browder received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1948. He is a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University...  (MIT)	1946
J. Arthur Greenwood (Harvard)	1946
Maxwell A. Rosenlicht (Columbia)	1946, 1947
Clarence Wilson Hewlett, Jr. (Harvard)	1947
William Turanski (UPenn)	1947
Eoin L. Whitney (Alberta University of Alberta The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the top universities in Canada... )	1947, 1948
W. Forrest Stinespring (Harvard)	1947, 1949
George F. D. Duff (Toronto)	1948
Harry Gonshor (McGill)	1948
Leonard Geller (Brooklyn College)	1948
Robert L. Mills Robert Mills (physicist) Robert L. Mills was a physicist, specializing in quantum field theory, the theory of alloys, and many-body theory. While sharing an office at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in 1954, Chen Ning Yang and Mills proposed a tensor equation for what are now called Yang-Mills fields...  (Columbia)	1948
Donald J. Newman (City College of NY)	1948, 1949, 1950
Ariel Zemach (Harvard)	1949
David L. Yarmush (Harvard)	1949
John W. Milnor John Milnor John Willard Milnor is an American mathematician known for his work in differential topology, K-theory, and dynamical systems, and for his influential books. He won the Fields Medal in 1962 and Wolf Prize in 1989. As of 2005, Milnor is a distinguished professor at the State University of New York...  (Princeton)	1949, 1950
John P. Mayberry (Toronto)	1950
Richard J. Semple (Toronto)	1950
Z. Alexander Melzak (British Columbia)	1950
Arthur P. Dempster Arthur P. Dempster Arthur Pentland Dempster is a Professor Emeritus in the Harvard University Department of Statistics. He was one of four faculty when the department was founded in 1957.He was a Putnam Fellow in 1951. He obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1956...  (Toronto)	1951
Harold Widom Harold Widom Harold Widom is an American mathematician, born in New York City and well known for his contributions tooperator theory and random matrices.-Education and research:Harold Widom studied at Stuyvesant High School which he...  (City College of NY)	1951
Herbert C. Kranzer (NYU)	1951
Peter John Redmond (Cooper Union)	1951
James B. Herreshoff IV (UC Berkeley)	1951, 1952, 1953
Eugene R. Rodemich (Washington U in StL)	1952
Gerhard Rayna (Harvard)	1952
Richard G. Swan (Princeton)	1952
Walter L. Bailey, Jr. (MIT)	1952
Marshall L. Freimer (Harvard)	1953
Norman Bauman (Harvard)	1953
Tai Tsun Wu Tai Tsun Wu Tai Tsun Wu is an Chinese American physicist well known for his contributions to high-energy nuclear physics and statistical mechanics....  (Minnesota University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States... )	1953
Samuel Jacob Klein (City College of NY)	1953, 1959, 1960
Benjamin Muckenhoupt (Harvard)	1954
James Daniel Bjorken (MIT)	1954
Leonard Evens (Cornell)	1954
William P. Hanf (UC Berkeley)	1954
Kenneth G. Wilson Kenneth G. Wilson Kenneth Geddes Wilson is an American theoretical physicist.As an undergraduate at Harvard, he was a Putnam Fellow. He earned his PhD from Caltech in 1961, studying under Murray Gell-Mann....  (Harvard)	1954, 1956
Howard C. Rumsey, Jr. (Caltech)	1955
Jack Towber (Brooklyn College)	1955
David B. Mumford (Harvard)	1955, 1956
Trevor Barker (Kenyon)	1955, 1956
Everett C. Dade (Harvard)	1955, 1957
Richard Michael Friedberg (Harvard)	1956
David M. Bloom (Columbia)	1956, 1957
J. Ian Richards (Minnesota)	1957
Richard T. Bumby (MIT)	1957
Rohit J. Parikh (Harvard)	1957
David R. Brillinger (Toronto)	Spring 1958
Donald J. C. Bures (Queen's)	Spring 1958
Lawrence A. Shepp (Brooklyn Polytech)	Spring 1958
Richard M. Dudley Richard M. Dudley Richard Mansfield Dudley is Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his PhD at Princeton University in 1962 under the supervision of Edward Nelson and Gilbert Hunt....  (Harvard)	Spring 1958
Joseph Lipman (Toronto)	Spring 1958, Fall 1958
Alan Gaisford Waterman (San Diego State)	Fall 1958
John Rex Forrester Hewett (Toronto)	Fall 1958
Robin C. Hartshorne Robin Hartshorne Robin Cope Hartshorne is an American mathematician.Hartshorne is an algebraic geometer who studied with Zariski, Mumford, J.-P. Serre and Grothendieck....  (Harvard)	Fall 1958
Alfred W. Hales (Caltech)	Fall 1958, 1959
Daniel G. Quillen Daniel Quillen Daniel Gray "Dan" Quillen is an American mathematician and a Fields Medalist.From 1984 to 2006 he was the Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics at Magdalen College, Oxford...  (Harvard)	1959
Donald Passman (Brooklyn Polytech)	1959
Donald S. Gorman (Harvard)	1959
I. Martin Isaacs (Brooklyn Polytech)	1959
Stephen L. Adler Stephen L. Adler Stephen L. Adler is an American physicist specializing in elementary particles and field theory.-Biography:He received an A.B. degree at Harvard University in 1961 and a Ph.D...  (Harvard)	1959
Stephen Lichtenbaum (Harvard)	1959
Jon H. Folkman (UC Berkeley)	1960
Louis Jaeckel (UCLA)	1960
Melvin Hochster Melvin Hochster Melvin Hochster is an eminent American mathematician, regarded as one of the leading commutative algebraists active today. He is currently the Jack E. McLaughlin Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics at the University of Michigan.Hochster attended Stuyvesant High School, where he was...  (Harvard)	1960
William R. Emerson (Caltech)	1960
Barry Wolk (Manitoba)	1961
Elwyn R. Berlekamp (MIT)	1961
Edward Anton Bender (Caltech)	1961, 1962
John Hathaway Lindsey (Caltech)	1961, 1962
William C. Waterhouse (Harvard)	1961, 1962
John William Wood (Harvard)	1962
Robert S. Strichartz (Dartmouth)	1962
Joel H. Spencer Joel Spencer Joel Spencer is an American mathematician. He is a combinatorialist who hasworked on probabilistic methods in combinatorics and on Ramsey theory.He received his doctorate from Harvard University in 1970, under the supervision of...  (MIT)	1963
Lawrence A. Zalcman (Dartmouth)	1963
Lawrence J. Corwin (Harvard)	1963
Robert E. Greene (Michigan State)	1963
Stephen E. Crick, Jr. (Michigan State)	1963
Barry B. MacKichan (Harvard)	1964
Fred William Roush (North Carolina University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. The university is the oldest in, and flagship of, the University of North Carolina system... )	1964
Roger E. Howe Roger Evans Howe Roger Evans Howe is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Mathematics at Yale University. He is well-known for his contributions to representation theory, and in particular for the notion of a reductive dual pair, sometimes known as a Howe pair....  (Harvard)	1964
Rufus (Robert) Bowen (UC Berkeley)	1964, 1965
Vern Poythress Vern Poythress Vern Sheridan Poythress is a Calvinist philosopher and theologian and New Testament scholar.-Biography:Poythress lived on his family farm in Madera, California until he was five years old and later moved with his family to Fresno, California...  (Caltech)	1964
Andreas R. Blass (Detroit)	1965
Barry Simon Barry Simon Barry Simon is an eminent American mathematical physicist and the IBM Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Caltech, known for his prolific contributions in spectral theory, functional analysis, and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics , including the connections to atomic and...  (Harvard)	1965
Daniel Fendel (Harvard)	1965
Lon M. Rosen (Toronto)	1965
Marshall W. Buck (Harvard)	1966
Robert E. Maas (Santa Clara Santa Clara University Santa Clara University is a private, co-educational Jesuit-affiliated university located in Santa Clara, California. Chartered by the state of California and accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, it operates in collaboration with the Society of Jesus , whose members founded... )	1966
Robert S. Winternitz (MIT)	1966
Theodore C. Chang (MIT)	1966
Richard C. Schroeppel (MIT)	1966, 1967
David R. Haynor (Harvard)	1967
Dennis A. Hejhal (Chicago)	1967
Don B. Zagier (MIT)	1967
Peter L. Montgomery (UC Berkeley)	1967
Dean G. Huffman (Yale)	1968
Gerald S. Gras (MIT)	1968
Neal Koblitz Neal Koblitz Neal Koblitz is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington in the Department of Mathematics. He is also an adjunct professor with the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research at the University of Waterloo. He is the creator of hyperelliptic curve cryptography and the independent...  (Harvard)	1968
Gerald A. Edgar (UC Santa Barbara University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Santa Barbara, California, northwest of Los Angeles... )	1968, 1969
Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith Don Coppersmith is a cryptographer and mathematician. He was involved in the design of the Data Encryption Standard block cipher at IBM, particularly the design of the S-boxes, strengthening them against differential cryptanalysis...  (MIT)	1968, 1969, 1970, 1971
Alan R. Beale (Rice)	1969
Steven Winkler (MIT)	1969
Robert A. Oliver (Chicago)	1969, 1970
Jeffrey Lagarias Jeffrey Lagarias Jeffrey Clark Lagarias is a mathematics professor at the University of Michigan.He was a Putnam Fellow in 1970. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. In 1975 he joined AT&T Bell Laboratories and eventually became Distinguished Member of Technical...  (MIT)	1970
Jockum Aniansson (Yale)	1970
Steven K. Winkler (MIT)	1970
Arthur Rubin Arthur Rubin Arthur Leonard Rubin is an American mathematician who has earned a place among the five top-ranked undergraduate competitors in the William Lowell Putnam Competition four times , a feat matched by only six other undergraduate students since the first competition in 1938...  (Purdue, Caltech)	1970, 1971, 1972, 1973
Dale Peterson (Yale)	1971
David Shucker (Swarthmore)	1971
Robert Israel (Chicago)	1971
Michael Yoder (Caltech)	1971, 1972
Arthur Rothstein (Reed Reed College Reed College is a private, independent, liberal arts college located in southeast Portland, Oregon. Founded in 1908, Reed is a four-year residential college with a campus located in Portland's residential Eastmoreland neighborhood, featuring architecture based on the Tudor-Gothic style, and a... )	1972
David Vogan David Vogan David Alexander Vogan is a mathematician at M.I.T. who works on unitary representations ofsimple Lie groups. He is one of the participants in the Atlas of Lie Groups and Representations.-Publications:*Some online by Vogan...  (Chicago)	1972
Dean Hickerson (UC Davis)	1972
Ira Gessel (Harvard)	1972
Angelos J. Tsirimokos (Princeton)	1973
Matthew L. Ginsberg (Wesleyan Wesleyan University Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the now secular university was the first institution of higher... )	1973
Peter G. De Buda (Toronto)	1973
David J. Anick (MIT)	1973, 1975
Grant M. Roberts (Waterloo)	1974
James B. Saxe (Union Union College Union College is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college located in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in the wake of the American Revolution, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents... )	1974
Karl C. Rubin Karl Rubin Karl Rubin is an American mathematician at University of California, Irvine as Thorp Professor of Mathematics. His research interest is in elliptic curves. He was the first mathematician to show that some elliptic curves over the rationals have finite Tate-Shafarevich groups...  (Princeton)	1974
Philip N. Strenski (Armstrong State)	1974
Thomas G. Goodwillie (Harvard)	1974, 1975
Ernest S. Davis (MIT)	1975
Franklin T. Adams (Chicago)	1975
Christopher L. Henley (Caltech)	1975, 1976
David J. Wright (Cornell)	1976
Nathaniel S. Kuhn (Harvard)	1976
Paul M. Herdig (Case Western Reserve)	1976
Philip I. Harrington (Washington U in StL)	1976
Steven T. Tschantz (UC Berkeley)	1976, 1978
Adam L. Stephanides (Chicago)	1977
Michael Roberts (MIT)	1977
Paul A. Vojta Paul Vojta Paul Alan Vojta is an American mathematician, known for his work in number theory on diophantine geometry and diophantine approximation....  (Minnesota)	1977
Stephen W. Modzelewski (Harvard)	1977
Russell D. Lyons (Case Western Reserve)	1977, 1978
Mark R. Kleiman (Princeton)	1978
Peter W. Shor (Caltech)	1978
Randall L. Dougherty (UC Berkeley)	1978, 1979, 1980
Charles H. Walter (Princeton)	1979
Mark G. Pleszkoch (Virginia University of Virginia The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson... )	1979
Miller Puckette Miller Puckette Miller Smith Puckette is the associate director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts as well as a faculty member at the University of California, San Diego, where he has been since 1994. Puckette is best known for authoring Max, a graphical development environment for music and...  (MIT)	1979
Richard Mifflin (Rice)	1979
Daniel J. Goldstein (Chicago)	1980
Laurence E. Penn (Harvard)	1980
Michael Raship (Harvard)	1980
Eric D. Carlson (Michigan State)	1980, 1982, 1983
Adam Stephanides (Chicago)	1981
Robin A. Pemantle (UC Berkeley)	1981
Scott R. Fluhrer (Case Western Reserve)	1981
David W. Ash (Waterloo)	1981, 1982, 1983
Michael J. Larsen (Harvard)	1981, 1983
Brian R. Hunt (Maryland)	1982
Edward A. Shpiz (Washington U in StL)	1982
Noam D. Elkies Noam Elkies Noam D. Elkies is an American mathematician and chess master.At age 14, Elkies received a gold medal with perfect score at the International Mathematical Olympiad...  (Columbia)	1982, 1983, 1984
Gregg N. Patruno (Princeton)	1983
Benji N. Fisher (Harvard)	1984
Daniel W. Johnson (Rose-Hulman Tech Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology , formerly Rose Polytechnic Institute, is a small, private, non-sectarian college specializing in teaching engineering, mathematics, and science. RHIT is highly regarded for its undergraduate engineering program, which is ranked as the best in the United States... )	1984
Richard A. Stong (Washington U in StL)	1984
Michael Reid (Harvard)	1984, 1987
Everett W. Howe (Caltech)	1985
Keith A. Ramsay (Chicago)	1985
Martin V. Hildebrand (Williams Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts.Williams was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams as a men's college, located in the Berkshires in northwestern Massachusetts, at the foot of Mount Greylock. In 1834, the first... )	1985
Douglas S. Jungreis (Harvard)	1985, 1986
Bjorn Poonen Bjorn Poonen Bjorn Poonen is a mathematician and is currently the Claude Shannon Professor of Mathematics at MIT.His research is primarily in number theory and algebraic geometry, but he has occasionally published in other subjects such as probability and computer science....  (Harvard)	1985, 1986, 1987, 1988
David I. Zuckerman (Harvard)	1986
Waldemar P. Horwat (MIT)	1986
David J. Grabiner (Princeton)	1986, 1987, 1988
David J. Moews (Harvard)	1986, 1987, 1988
Constantin S. Teleman (Harvard)	1987
John S. Tillinghast (UC Davis)	1987
Jeremy A. Kahn (Harvard)	1988
Ravi D. Vakil (Toronto)	1988, 1989, 1990, 1991
Andrew H. Kresch (Yale)	1989
Christos A. Athanasiadis (MIT)	1989
Colin M. Springer (Waterloo)	1989
Sihao Wu (Yale)	1989
William P. Cross (Caltech)	1989
Jordan Lampe (UC Berkeley)	1990
Raymond M. Sidney (Harvard)	1990
Eric K. Wepsic (Harvard)	1990, 1991
Jordan S. Ellenberg (Harvard)	1990, 1992
Joshua B. Fischman (Princeton)	1991
Xi Chen (Missouri–Rolla Missouri University of Science and Technology Missouri University of Science and Technology , is an institution of higher learning located in Rolla, Missouri, and part of the University of Missouri System... )	1991
Samuel A. Kutin (Harvard)	1991, 1992
Jeffrey M. Vanderkam (Duke)	1992
Serban M. Nacu (Harvard)	1992
Adam Logan Adam Logan Adam Logan is a research mathematician and a top Canadian Scrabble player. He won the World Scrabble Championship in 2005, beating Pakorn Nemitrmansuk of Thailand 3-0 in the final. He is the only player to have won the Canadian Scrabble Championship three times...  (Princeton)	1992, 1993
Craig B. Gentry (Duke)	1993
Wei-Hwa Huang Wei-Hwa Huang Wei-Hwa Huang is an award-winning American puzzler and member of the US Team for the World Puzzle Federation.Huang was a Putnam Fellow in 1993. Huang has won the annual World Puzzle Championship on four occasions: 1995 and 1997–1999...  (Caltech)	1993
J. P. Grossman (Toronto)	1993, 1994, 1995
Kiran S. Kedlaya (Harvard)	1993, 1994, 1995
Lenhard L. Ng (Harvard)	1993, 1994, 1995
William R. Mann (Princeton)	1994
Jeremy L. Bem (Cornell)	1994, 1996
Sergey V. Levin (Harvard)	1995
Yevgeniy Dodis (NYU)	1995
Dragos N. Oprea (Harvard)	1996
Ioana Dumitriu (NYU)	1996
Robert D. Kleinberg (Cornell)	1996
Stephen S. Wang (Harvard)	1996
Daniel K. Schepler (Washington U in StL)	1996, 1997
Ovidiu Savin (Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of... )	1997
Patrick K. Corn (Harvard)	1997
Samuel Grushevsky (Harvard)	1997
Mike L. Develin (Harvard)	1997, 1998
Ciprian Manolescu Ciprian Manolescu Ciprian Manolescu is a Romanian mathematician. He is presently an Associate Professor in the mathematics department at the University of California, Los Angeles....  (Harvard)	1997, 1998, 2000
Ari M. Turner (Princeton)	1998
Nathan G. Curtis (Duke)	1998
Kevin D. Lacker (Duke)	1998, 2001
Christopher C. Mihelich (Harvard)	1999
Colin A. Percival (Simon Fraser Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University is a public university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. It was established in 1965 and presently has more than 32,000 students and 900 faculty members. The university was named after... )	1999
Davesh Maulik (Harvard)	1999
Derek I.E. Kisman (Waterloo)	1999
Sabin Cautis (Waterloo)	1999
Abhinav Kumar Abhinav Kumar Abhinav Kumar is a mathematician, who works in algebraic geometry, number theory, and sphere packing.He received his S.B. in Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science from MIT, and his Ph.D...  (MIT)	1999, 2000
Pavlo Pylyavskyy (MIT)	2000
Alexander B. Schwartz (Harvard)	2000, 2002
Gabriel D. Carroll Gabriel D. Carroll Gabriel Drew Carroll is a recent graduate of Harvard and current MIT student who received numerous awards in mathematics while a student. Carroll won two gold medals and a silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad, earning a perfect score at the 2001 International Mathematical...  (UC Berkeley, Harvard)	2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
George Lee, Jr. (Harvard)	2001
Jan K. Siwanowicz (City University of NY City University of New York The City University of New York , is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E... )	2001
Reid W. Barton Reid W. Barton Reid W. Barton is currently a graduate student at Harvard University in mathematics, an MIT alumni, and one of the all-time greatest performers in the International Science Olympiads.- Biography:Barton is the son of two environmental engineers...  (MIT)	2001, 2002, 2003, 2004
Deniss Cebikins (MIT)	2002
Melanie E. Wood Melanie Wood Melanie Matchett Wood, born 1981 in Indianapolis, Indiana, is an American mathematician who has set numerous firsts as a woman in the area of mathematics...  (Duke)	2002
Ralph C. Furmaniak (Waterloo)	2003
Ana Caraiani (Princeton)	2003, 2004
Daniel M. Kane (MIT)	2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
Vladimir V. Barzov (MIT)	2004
Aaron C. Pixton (Princeton)	2004, 2005, 2007
Oleg Golberg (MIT)	2005
Matthew M. Ince (MIT)	2005
Ricky I. Liu (Harvard)	2005
Tiankai Liu (Harvard)	2005, 2006
Hansheng Diao (MIT)	2006
Po-Ru Loh (Caltech)	2006
Yufei Zhao (MIT)	2006, 2008
Jason C. Bland (Caltech)	2007
Brian R. Lawrence (Caltech)	2007, 2008
Qingchun Ren (MIT)	2007
Xuancheng Shao (MIT)	2007
Arnav Tripathy (Harvard)	2007, 2008
Seok Hyeong Lee (Stanford)	2008
Bohua Zhan (MIT)	2008

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Award winners

Since 1992, the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam Award has been available to be awarded to a female participant with a high score.  It is not awarded every year.  Names in bold have been Putnam Fellows at least once; the year(s) in which they were Fellows are in bold as well.

Name	Team	Year (s)
Dana Pascovici	Dartmouth	1992
Ruth A. Britto-Pacumio	MIT	1994
Ioana Dumitriu	NYU	1995, 1996, 1997
Wai Ling Yee	Waterloo	1999
Melanie E. Wood Melanie Wood Melanie Matchett Wood, born 1981 in Indianapolis, Indiana, is an American mathematician who has set numerous firsts as a woman in the area of mathematics...	Duke	2001, 2002
Ana Caraiani	Princeton	2003, 2004
Alison B. Miller Alison Miller Alison Miller received a B.A. degree in mathematics from Harvard in 2008. She has written important research papers in number theory and combinatorics and won Harvard's Hoopes Prize for her senior thesis....	Harvard	2005, 2006, 2007
Viktoriya Krakovna	Toronto	2008

External links

• William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition official site
• William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition results
• William Lowell Putnam Competition problems, solutions, and results archive
• Archive of Putnam Problems and Student Solutions
• Archive of Problems 1938-2003
• The Harvard-United States Military Academy Mathematics Competition of 1933: Genesis of the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
• Searchable data base for information about careers of Putnam Fellows
• A comprehensive history of the Putnam competition.