Abigail Ho was a freshman when she scored 10 points on the Putnam. In most math departments, that number would be a quiet note in a record somewhere. At Biola University, it earned her a name on the wall.
The wall is a physical plaque in the Alton and Lydia Lim Center for Science, Technology and Health, maintained by the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. It lists every Biola student who has scored above 10 points on the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition since 1980. Ho joined it in her first year. Two teammates scored higher: Zachary Ellington with 19 points, Joshua Lowrance with 18. The six Biola students who competed in 2024 placed the university in the 77th percentile of 471 competing institutions. That is the top 23% in the most prestigious undergraduate math contest in North America.
What the Putnam Is
The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition is the most prestigious undergraduate math contest in the United States and Canada, administered by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). It has run annually since 1938; the 2024 competition was the 84th. The exam runs six hours, split into two three-hour sessions of six problems each. The total possible score is 120 points. The 2024 median was 10 points, but in most years the median is a few points or zero. The problems require original arguments in territory where standard approaches do not apply.
"The Putnam Exam, run by the Mathematical Association of America, is the most prestigious math contest for undergraduates in the US and in Canada," said Dr. Joseph DiMuro, associate professor of mathematics.
More than 4,000 students compete each year. The 471 institutions that participated in 2024 include MIT, Princeton, and Harvard. Institutions are ranked by the sum of their three highest individual scores.
The 2024 Results
Six Biola students competed. Zachary Ellington, a mathematics student, scored 19 points. Joshua Lowrance, also in mathematics, scored 18. Abigail Ho, a freshman in mathematics, scored 10, clearing the threshold for the department plaque in her first year. Rachael Combes scored nine. Asaf Correa, an international freshman in computer science, scored three — a notable result for a first attempt on a test where the median is often zero. Benjamin Lanz scored two. All six scored at least one point, which the MAA considers a genuine accomplishment.
Ellington, Lowrance, and Ho's combined score placed Biola in the 77th percentile across all 471 participating schools.
The Tradition
Biola has entered the Putnam since the 1980s, and the department has kept the plaque in the Lim Center since then, listing every qualifying score across more than four decades. When Ellington, Lowrance, and Ho scored in 2024, they joined that list.
Dr. DiMuro prepares students through weekly prep sessions. Despite the exam being taken individually, the sessions build team cohesion: students work through problems together that no coursework directly anticipates. The Putnam does not test whether students remember formulas. It tests whether they can construct original arguments under time pressure, on problems they have never seen.
What It Signals
Biola's 77th percentile placement is calculated on the same scale as every other institution that entered. There is no separate category for small schools or Christian universities. The ranking comes from the Mathematical Association of America, applied uniformly across MIT, Princeton, Harvard, and 467 others. Biola's score was counted the same way as everyone else's.
The Department of Mathematics and Computer Science is not a large program. It does not compete with flagship research universities on faculty headcount or lab resources. The Putnam ranking is an external measure of one specific thing: whether students can construct original mathematical arguments on an exam designed to produce mostly zeros. On that measure, in 2024, Biola placed in the top 23% of North America.
