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<p>Just to clarify, the Putnam is not really emphasized at MIT. There’s a freshman problem solving seminar aimed at preparing for the Putnam, but other than that, most people don’t spend very much time, if at all, preparing. Most people who do well on the Putnam did well on math contests in high school, and those abilities seem to stay with them in college. Also, I don’t know of any other math contests that MIT participates in, except for possibly the MCM, which is a really different type of contest than the contests most people are familiar with.</p>