Competition information
First Saturday of December
December 6, 2025 (Location TBA)
Session A: 8–11 am
Session B: 1–4 pm
Important!
If your religious beliefs prevent you from taking the contest on a Saturday, you may take the test after sundown the day before. (We will have to ask for permission from the Contest Directors, but they generally grant such requests if submitted in a timely fashion.) You will have to make arrangements to stay under the supervision of a rabbi or clergyman from 8 am on the day of the contest.
Registration
Information about how to register will be available soon!
(Non-UW students who wish to take the exam at UW should register with their home institution and have their Putnam administrator contact us.)
Facts to Consider
- The Putnam Competition has a very large student participation—over 3000 undergraduates each year.
- The top 5 scorers receive first prize; traditionally, this is achieved with around 90+ points out of a possible 120.
- Top 200 (which, given the number of participants, is quite a good ranking!) is much easier to achieve: you only need about 40+ points, i.e., four problems correctly solved and correctly written up.
- Top 100 is usually achieved with five problems.
- Consider this: there are two three-hour sessions, each with six problems to choose from, so all you need to do to achieve a really good ranking is solve a couple of them during each session.
Putnam Preparation Sessions
We will hold 2-hour long preparation sessions on Monday evenings in the Autumn quarter during which we will solve and discuss problems. We highly recommend these sessions for anyone who is interested in developing their problem-solving skills!
Math 342: Art of Problem Solving
Students interested in taking the exam are highly encouraged to apply to the problem-solving class, Math 342: Art of Problem Solving. Taking the class will involve mainly homework and board presentations and will be a fun way to connect to and work with like-minded, mathematically inclined people, and learn problem-solving skills in a more disciplined environment.
Note: Math 342 is not being offered in 2025.
Useful Links
- Prep session schedule and handouts (2024)
- The Official Site for the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition
- Putnam Archive (past problems, solutions, and statistics)
Faculty Contacts
- Prof. Ricky Liu (riliu@uw.edu)
- Prof. Gaku Liu (gakuliu@uw.edu)
- Prof. Julia Pevtsova (julia@math.washington.edu)