Princeton University Mathematics Competition

The Princeton University Mathematics Competition (PUMaC) is an annual competition run by the Princeton University Math Club run entirely by Princeton undergraduates since 2006. Participants from all over the United States as well as international territories come together for the competition for one day to take a huge variety of mathematical tests, have fun, and meet new people.

Goals
The competition has a few goals:
 * To motivate high school students to enjoy studying mathematics
 * To expose high school students to tools and applications critical for success in mathematics
 * To allow high school students to enjoy solving mathematical problems (short answer and proof)
 * To introduce students to the Princeton campus in the hope that they would consider applying to Princeton

The early years
The first annual PUMaC took place on December 16, 2006 on the Princeton campus. PUMaC was a smaller competition at the time that first year. However, just in 2009, the competition grew to over 750 students. Beginning in 2010, the competition went international. Beginning, in 2009 a PUMaC logo was released (see the gallery).

2016
The 2016 PUMaC was brought upon a number of changes:


 * Individual Scoring System: This system was designed by Eric Neyman to mitigate the luck factor in Individual Test Scoring. The idea is that if a competitor is equally good in two individual subject tests, then that individual should get approximately the same score regardless of which one of the tests they took. Otherwise, how an individual did would be left to chance.


 * Introduction of the Live Round: The live round was created to foster a different competitive atmosphere among the competitors. Specifically, it creates the spirit of solving mathematical problems in their own right.


 * A New PUMaC Logo: A new PUMaC logo was introduced in 2016, and has been in use since then (see the gallery).