Students score well at the most prestigious math competition in the country

Westminster mathematics students made history this year at the annual and notoriously difficult Putnam Exam.  The Putnam Exam is a prestigious math competition held for student at any US or Canadian college or university every December.  Seven Westminster students took the exam this year: Ying Wang, ’16,  Yaobin Wang, ’15,  Siyuan Dong, ’17, Ruoshui Xu, ’16, Amanda Bright, ’14, and Pius Nyakoojo, ’16.  Five of the Westminster participants scored at least one point, landing Westminster 77th – the best Putnam ranking in Westminster history.

To better understand the magnitude of this accomplishment, consider athletics – colleges are compared and ranked within divisions of similarly-sized schools. For the Putnam exam, our students go up against all colleges and universities in the US and Canada.  Westminster’s team ranked 77th against 4,200+ higher education institutions – the top 1.8% of US and Canadian mathematics students. “This is an amazing and unprecedented triumph for Westminster students,” said Dr. Ryan Mullen, Putnam team advisor for the past three years.  “We scored more points this year than we have in the last five years combined.  What we did this year is incredible.”