Harvey Mudd Students Place 11th Nationwide in Putnam Competition

Thirty-three Harvey Mudd College students competed in the 2025 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition in December and took the notoriously difficult six-hour exam that tests speed and depth of mathematical reasoning.

The competition hosted 4,329 students from 487 institutions. The top individual score on the exam was 110 out of a possible 120 points, while the average score was approximately 10, and the median score was 2.

As a team, based on the ranks of the top three scorers from each school, Harvey Mudd placed 11th in the nation.

Special recognition goes to the following individuals: Alan Kappler ‘27 for placing in the Top 100, Alan Lu ’29 and Adam Tang ’26 for placing in Top 200, and to Silas Brock ‘28, Aidan Deshong ‘28, Spencer Lewis ‘28, Kai Mawhinney ‘27 and Luke Wang ’27 for placing in Top 500.

Elizabeth Lowell Putnam founded the event in 1927 in memory of her husband, William Lowell Putnam, a Harvard graduate and advocate of intercollegiate intellectual competition. 

Administered by the Mathematical Association of America, the exam, composed of 12 problems worth 10 points each, has been offered annually since 1938 to regularly enrolled undergraduates in the United States and Canada who have not yet received a college degree.

Harvey Mudd students first participated in the Putnam competition on Dec. 2, 1961. In 1991, the Harvey Mudd team earned third place.