<p>For all you who are relatively new to these boards, you may not be aware that a few very new posters always appear at this time of year on the Princeton boards. They are always strongly critical of Princeton, are often crude in their approach and have just a handful of posts to their names. If you check their other contributions to the boards you will find that they consist almost entirely of negative posts about Princeton. Those of us who have been on these boards for some time assume that they are posters who go by other screen names elsewhere on CC and have created a new identity just prior to notification of admissions in order to do everything they can to denigrate Princeton. They are generally rabid advocates of Princetons peer schools but will hide that so as not to give away their identities. Its an immature posting strategy and Princeton seems to be the favorite target. If you look back at posts from about this time last year and the year before youll find more of these new posters who will disappear shortly after admissions season is over.</p>
<p>As for the Putnam competition, Princeton has done extremely well over the years and particularly well in the last decade. While its true that Princeton has only one first place finish, it is almost always in the top handful of schools. In fact, in the last ten years, the top two spots have been held by Harvard and Princeton five times. Overall, Harvard has dominated the competition with first place finishes but Princetons record in the competition is very impressive as well. Here is another comparison.</p>
<p>First or Second Place Ranking in Last Ten Years</p>
<p>8 — Harvard
6 — Princeton
4 — MIT
1 — Duke & Waterloo</p>
<p>First or Second Place Ranking in Last Five Years</p>
<p>5 — Princeton
4 — Harvard
1 — MIT</p>