# Chinese and Chinese-American winners of the Putnam contest

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-and-chinese-american-winners-of-the-putnam-contest/831343>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 19, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-and-chinese-american-winners-of-the-putnam-contest/831343 "2019-03-19T00:21:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Steven\_Estes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Steven\_Estes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Estes)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-and-chinese-american-winners-of-the-putnam-contest/831343/1 "2019-03-19T00:21:37Z")

</div>

The Putnam competition is a mathematical contest for the very best college undergraduate math students.  
In recent years the highest scorers have been overwhelmingly Chinese and Chinese-Americans.

1. What percent were, over the past few years, Chinese and what percentage were Chinese-Americans?
2. Over the past few years, of those who were Chinese (and not Chinese-Americans) what percentage remained in the U.S. after college (and grad school) and what percentage returned to China?  
I realize the answers must be estimates, but they would be helpful.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-and-chinese-american-winners-of-the-putnam-contest/831343/2 "2019-03-19T01:30:04Z")

</div>

In 2017, they sound like they were almost all east asian.

[https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/putnam2017results.html](https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/putnam2017results.html)

Not as much in 2015 and 2016, but still a strong showing.

[https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/putnam2016results.html](https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/putnam2016results.html)

[https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/putnam2015results.html](https://kskedlaya.org/putnam-archive/putnam2015results.html)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hermitian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hermitian/32/470_2.png) [@Hermitian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermitian)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-and-chinese-american-winners-of-the-putnam-contest/831343/3 "2019-03-19T13:24:59Z")

</div>

[This](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition#Putnam_Fellows) may help some.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chinese-and-chinese-american-winners-of-the-putnam-contest/831343/4 "2019-03-19T22:05:40Z")

</div>

The 2017 Putnam Fellow [Ömer\_Cerrahoğlu]([Omar (name) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96mer) Cerrahoğlu) is Romanian.

The 2017 Putnam Fellow [Jiyang Gao](https://www.imo-official.org/participant_r.aspx?id=24770) is Chinese.

Since many Putnam Fellows are former International Math Olympiad winners, you might be able to track down the nationalities of some others from IMO records.

> [@Steven Estes](#):
>
> Over the past few years, of those who were Chinese (and not Chinese-Americans) what percentage remained in the U.S. after college (and grad school) and what percentage returned to China?

Considering that the overall winners of the Putnam competition make up only a minuscule fraction of even the top-ranked college mathematics students (and several of them win in multiple years), I’m not sure how much difference it makes where this tiny handful of math whizzes go after graduation.

For a big-picture comparison, nowadays about [8 in 10 Chinese students return to China after studying abroad](https://qz.com/1342525/chinese-students-increasingly-return-home-after-studying-abroad/).