Brigham Young University placed 24th out of 546 institutions in the Putnam Mathematical Competition, an annual competition for the brightest undergraduate mathematics students in the United States and Canada administered by the Mathematical Association of America.
The BYU team consisted of Donald Sampson, Peter Baratta and Hiram Golze. Baratta was the team's high scorer with 42 points (134th place out of 4,036 total contestants), while Sampson and Golze scored 30 and 20 points, respectively. Many other BYU students participated in the contest and did very well, according to Tyler Jarvis, chair of the BYU Department of Mathematics.
BYU math students also fared well in the annual Integration Bee, a competition against students from nearby Utah Valley University. The event functions much like a traditional spelling bee, but with a fun twist — instead of spelling difficult words, the contestants compete against one another to solve complex mathematical equations.
Undergraduate students Adam Fletcher and Sameer Bhattarai earned first- and third-place finishes, respectively. Utah Valley University's Victoria Trevino took second.
For more information, call (801) 422-2061 or visit maa.org/awards/putnam.html.
Writer: Brandon Garrett
