Live data from Hacker News

Where have the IMO gold medallists ended up? Part three of three

xquant.substack.com

1–8 of 8 posts

Re: Where have the IMO gold medallists ended up? Part three of three

#2
I think MIT has been specifically trying to recruit IMO winners - if you look at the Putnam winners recently MIT has been dominating. This wasn't the case until the past few years though.

For example see:

https://news.mit.edu/2024/four-peat-mit-students-first-place...

Re: Where have the IMO gold medallists ended up? Part three of three

#3
post #2

I think MIT has been specifically trying to recruit IMO winners - if you look at the Putnam winners recently MIT has been dominating. This wasn't the case until the past few years though. For example see: https://news.mit.edu/2024/four-peat-mit-students-first-place...

It seemed like things began to change in the early nineties. I'm trying to track down who in the admissions office instigated it. I don't suppose you know?

Re: Where have the IMO gold medallists ended up? Part three of three

#4
post #2

I think MIT has been specifically trying to recruit IMO winners - if you look at the Putnam winners recently MIT has been dominating. This wasn't the case until the past few years though. For example see: https://news.mit.edu/2024/four-peat-mit-students-first-place...

The recent MIT period of dominance correlates very well with professor who is coaching the team there.

Re: Where have the IMO gold medallists ended up? Part three of three

#6
post #3
post #2

I think MIT has been specifically trying to recruit IMO winners - if you look at the Putnam winners recently MIT has been dominating. This wasn't the case until the past few years though. For example see: https://news.mit.edu/2024/four-peat-mit-students-first-place...

It seemed like things began to change in the early nineties. I'm trying to track down who in the admissions office instigated it. I don't suppose you know?

At least when I was involved with math contests (early 2010s) it was more that there were a lot of ex-campers at MIT/Harvard, and that did a lot to convince me.

Po Shen did a lot to recruit students directly to CMU, but I'm not sure there was a similar direct line at MIT.