CSU, Chico News

Mathematics students from California State University, Chico finished 30th out of 400 universities the Putnam Math Competition exam, one of the premier math competitions in the world.

The team consisted of three undergraduates, David Stolp, Teresa Jacobson and Gabriel Maybrun. Stolp ranked in the top 200 among the 3500 students who wrote the exam last December. Jacobson was in the top 400 and Maybrun was in the top 600. In addition, five other CSU, Chico students took the exam: Rob Abbot, Alexandra Appel, Hilary Haddorff, Jungyul Kwon and Sandra Mohammed.

The Putnam Math Competition is offered every December to several thousand students from Canada and the United States. "It is an extremely difficult exam," said Margaret Owens, chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. "It is not unusual that the median score is 0. In other words, half the students earn no points at all. A perfect score is 120. Only three students have earned a perfect score in the 70-year history of the competition."

"Chico's placement on the Putnam test is really an achievement when you consider the list of the top 10 teams: Harvard, Princeton, Duke, MIT, Waterloo, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, Toronto and Yale," said Thomas Mattman, mathematics professor and team coach. "The best previous finish of a CSU, Chico Putnam team was 104th in 2003."

The Putnam Math competition began in 1938 and is designed to stimulate a healthy rivalry in mathematical studies in the colleges and universities of the United States and Canada. Mr. William Lowell Putnam, a Harvard 1882 graduate, believed in the value of organized team competition. After his death, his widow, Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, created a trust fund known as the William Lowell Putnam Intercollegiate Memorial Fund for the competition. The competition is under the administration of the Mathematical Association of America.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 8:30 am and is filed under 2006 Spring.