This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
Lafayette’s three-student team finished in the top 10 percent of schools participating nationally in the 2009-10 William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition.
The College placed 29th out of 439 teams. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, California Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and Princeton University were this year’s top finishers. This is now the eighth year out of the last 10 that a Lafayette team has finished in the top 15 percent, including two top five percent finishes in 2002 and 2008.
The six-hour exam consists of 12 questions, each worth 10 points. The test is extremely challenging with fewer than half the participating students receiving a positive score.
Each school has one official team of three students chosen before taking the test. Peiyuan Mao ’11 (Yangzhou Jiangsu Province, China), who is pursuing a B.S. in physics and an A.B. with a major in economics and business, led the College’s team with 31 points and ranked 263 out of 4,036 students who took the exam. Math major Liang Zhang ’13 (Shandong, China) scored 30 points and ranked 311th, and math major Chencong Bao ’11 (Shanghai, China) scored 22 points and ranked 478th.
Although they were not on the designated team, math major Peter McGrath ’11 (Burtonsville, Md.) scored 22 points; math majors Edmund Karasiewicz ’11 (Woodbridge, N.J.), Dylan McNamara ’11 (Pasadena, Md.), and Katie Sokolowsky ’10 (Downingtown, Pa.), and mathematics-economics major Miao Wang ’12 (Cheng De He Bei, China) scored 20 points; math major Gavin Hobbs ’12 (Pen Argyl, Pa.) scored 11 points; and Xuan Chen ’13 (Chengdu, China), math major Jorge Sawyer ’10 (Lodi, N.J.), and math major Nathaniel Shatz ’11 (Tucson, Ariz.) scored 10 points.