<p>Does having one of the top five scores in this exam mean that you are automatically accepted to Harvard or does it mean that if you do get accepted, you will have a full ride?</p>
<p>It means none of those things.</p>
<p>Graduate school has very little to do with mathematics competitions. It’s nice to score very well on the Putnam, but it’s not necessary (or sufficient.) </p>
<p>Of course, the people who do win the Putnam are typically incredibly talented and hard-working, so they also end up having what it takes to get into the top math PhD programs. So the correlation is likely very high.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info</p>