William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition - Competition Layout

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 score is usually one or two points out of 120 possible, and there have been only four perfect scores as of 2010. 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, any student who wishes to take part in the exam may compete (limited by the number of exams a school receives); 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 2010, MIT had two of the top five scorers on the examination and seven of the top 24, while Caltech had just one student in the top five and only four in the top 24; yet Caltech took first place among teams while MIT took second.

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 for graduate study at Harvard University. 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. Many Putnam Fellows have gone on to become distinguished researchers in mathematics and other fields, including three Fields Medalists—Milnor, Mumford, and Quillen—and two Nobel laureates in physics—Feynman and Wilson.