LSU undergraduate math major Andrew Williamson was ranked at the 97th percentile on the recent William Lowell Putmam Mathematics Contest for undergraduate math majors. With a score of 56 out of 120 he was ranked 128th out of 4296.
The Putnam competition is an annual student math competition sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America. In recent years more than 4000 students from colleges and universities in the United States and Canada have participated in this contest, which is held simultaneously at participating universities, usually on the first Saturday of December. For the 2010 competition, a total of 4296 students from 546 colleges and universities participated. There were teams from 442 institutions. LSU's team rank was 129 out of the 442 institutions participating.
The Putnam exam consists of 12 problems (6 in the morning session and 6 in the afternoon session) with a possible score of 10 points on each problem. Out of 120 possible points, the median score is typically 1 point. A score of 10 points (one problem solved correctly) places one in the upper third of the participants. Wikipedia maintains a list of winners, scores, and the exam, see the Putnam Archive.