Mar 30, 2011 - Claremont, Calif. -

In a test so challenging that this year’s median score was “2” out of a possible 120 points, landing on the Top 200 list—with a score of 50+—is nothing short of a stellar performance.

And the 39 Harvey Mudd College students who faced more than 4,000 competitors to nab their place in the 2010 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition shined like stars.

Seven seized spots in the Top 200 List for the individual category:

The accomplishment is especially honorable considering only five other, much larger schools—Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Stanford and Waterloo—had more than seven students in the Top 200, said math professor and Putnam Seminar Coach Francis Su.

Seven more students made the Top 500 List: Emil Guliyev ’13, Jennifer Iglesias ’12, Andrew Carter ’13, Louis Ryan ’12, Ryan Muller ’11, Aaron Pribadi ’12, and Peter Fedak ’13.

Additionally, Mebane, Iglesias and Fedak also placed 21st in the competition’s team category. 

“We are very proud of all our students who represented us in this competition,” Su said. “It reflects how much our students appreciate the beauty and joy of doing mathematics.”

Established in 1938, the contest is named after William Lowell Putnam, a Harvard graduate who valued academic competitions. The annual competition, held the first Saturday in December, is open to college students in the United States and Canada. Participants are given a six-hour exam, composed of 12 problems, each worth 10 points.

HMC students first participated in the Putnam competition on Dec. 2, 1961 and, in 1991, the HMC team garnered third place.