<p>To follow up on Miru’s post, if you go back a year on the Putnam from when s/he did, you’ll see something even more impressive:</p>
<p>[The</a> Mathematical Contest in Modeling](<a href=“http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/contests/2008/results/]The”>http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/contests/2008/results/)</p>
<p>There were 12 papers worldwide that were chosen as outstanding papers, and Harvey Mudd had 4 of them. And this was out of (I believe) 7 teams. And the three teams who didn’t get Outstanding all did very well (2 meritorious and 1 honorable mention, if I recall correctly). Given that it’s not like these people do any special training or took classes to get ready for this, it was a pretty impressive performance.</p>