Putnam Competition

Do problems like the ones below intrigue you? If so, we invite you to participate in the Putnam Competition.

The 83rd Annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition

Saturday, December 3, 2022

From the website of the Putnam Competition

(https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/putnam-competition)

The competition will take place on Saturday, December 3, proctored in-person on campuses across the US and Canada. Participants (undergraduate students) will be able to register for the competition as soon as a supervisor from their institution registers and is approved. [Dr. Higgins is the supervisor at UD, and has been approved.] By registering, participants are assigned a Putnam Identification Number (PIN), which they will need in order to participate in the competition on December 3.
Participants (undergraduate students) can register for the competition starting Sept. 26 once a supervisor from their institution is registered and approved. [Dr. Higgins has registered and has been approved as UD's faculty supervisor.] Please go to https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/putnam-competition and find the button that says "Click here for student registration."
Check out FAQs at this website: https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/putnam-competition#FAQs

INFORMATION FOR REGISTERED PARTICIPANTS FOR THE 83rd PUTNAM COMPETITION
The competition is administered in two sessions (A and B). Each session lasts exactly three hours. Participants may start the A session on December 3 at 10 am Eastern time. After completing the A session, participants will have a 2-hour break. The B session must start at 3 pm.
For each of the 12 problems, participants will handwrite their work on plain 8.5-by-11 sheets of unlined paper. All work to justify a solution and all necessary steps of proof should be submitted. When working on one problem, participants should not refer to work on a different problem. Writing utensils, blank paper, and erasers are permitted, but other materials, such as books, calculators, computers, rulers, compass, lined paper, or graph paper, are not permitted.

The Putnam Competition is a very challenging, six-hour mathematics competition administered by the Mathematical Association of America. This prestigious competition is taken by over 4,000 undergraduates in the United States and Canada each year. A college can have any number of participants.

Cost: None

How can I register?

Please complete the following two items below. Even though you will be registering directly at the link in item 1. below, I have to certify for each student that you are a bona fide student at the University of Dayton. If I have not had you in class, or if you have not participated in the Putnam Competition in previous years, I will not be able to certify that you are a student here. Hence, I request Item 2. as well.

Student registration is now open.

Please go to https://www.maa.org/math-competitions/putnam-competition and find the button that says "Click here for student registration."

Please send me <ahiggins1@udayton.edu> the following information:
- Your name
- Your UD email address
- The number of times you have already participated in the Putnam Competition -- for most of you this will be "zero."
- Your expected year of graduation from UD.
- How you heard about the Putnam competition (e.g., I took it last year, or I saw the flyer, or My instructor [tell us who, please] told me, etc.)?
- How interested are you in attending "prep" sessions? (Attendance at prep sessions is entirely voluntary. )

Contact: If you have any questions, please contact me (Dr. Aparna W. Higgins). I am a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics at UD. The most reliable way to contact me is by email, ahiggins1@udayton.edu. A second method of reaching me is by telephone: (937) 229-2103.

Official information from the Putnam organizers

History of the Putnam Competition

William Lowell Putnam, a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1882, believed strongly in the value of academic competitions. To this end, Mrs. Elizabeth Lowell Putnam, the wife of Mr. Putnam, created a trust fund for supporting such competitions in memory of her husband. Two experimental competitions were held, one in English, and one in mathematics, before the competition assumed its present form in 1938. Scholarships and cash prizes ranging from $250 to $2,500 for the top students and $5,000 to $25,000 for the top schools are given by the Putnam committee. (No awards will be made in 2021.)