A team of three Harvard undergraduates has placed first in a national mathematics competition, winning $5000 for the Mathematics Department and $250 for themselves, competition officials announced last month.

The Putnam Mathematical Competition, open to college students in the U.S. and Canada, is a six-hour exam "constructed to test originality as well as technical competence," according to a release from the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), which administers the exam.

The Association ranked the Harvard group number one out of a field of 264 teams.

The three students, selected to represent Harvard because of their performance on last year's exam, competed as individuals along with 44 other Harvard undergraduates and a total of 2,076 students from 348 institutions.

Two students, Bjorn M. Poonen '89 and team member Douglas S. Jungreis '86, were among the five highest finishers in the competition. They were named Putnam Fellows and will receive awards of $500, according to the MAA.

Two other Harvard students ranked among the top ten competitors and will receive awards of $250 each. Four more undergraduates, including the remaining two teammembers, received honorable mention.

Since the competition's start in 1938, Harvard has won 11 times, more often than any other school. The California Institute of Technology ranks second, having won the contest nine times.

In this year's exam, Princeton University finished second, with the University of California at Berkeley garnering third place.

The team scores were compiled from the individual scores of the teammembers and then ranked among the 264 competing teams, according to Andrew M. Gleason, head tutor in the Mathematics Department and Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy.

Putnam Fellow Poonen said he knew that he had done well when he finished the exam. The freshman from Winchester, Mass. received a silver medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad last year.