COMAP’s Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) are international contests for high school students and college undergraduates. The contests challenge teams of up to three students to analyze, model, solve, and present solution reports to an open-ended application problem. It is the most influential mathematical modeling competition in the world.

Recently，the results for 2024 MCM/ICM are out. RUC teams, following their amazing performance in the past, achieved another notable success this year:

Five teams won the Outstanding Winner COMAP Scholarship Award, ranking first among all universities across the globe.

Five teams won the Finalists Winner COMAP Scholarship Award

23 teams won the Meritorious Winner COMAP Scholarship Award

80 teams won the Honorable Mention COMAP Scholarship Award

Besides, 4 teams won the Named Scholarships, including 2 COMAP Scholarship Awards and 2 SIAM Awards, COMAP Scholarship Award.

This year, a total of 28,912 teams participated in the 2024 competition worldwide. The percentage of the Outstanding Winner was only 0.12%. Previously, in both 2022 and 2023 MCM/ICM, 3 RUC teams won the Outstanding Winner COMAP Scholarship Award, with the best performance among all participating universities from different parts of the world. The remarkable performance of RUC students this year further consolidates it’s leading positioning in the competition.

About MCM/ICM

The 2024 MCM/ICM for Undergraduates was held in February, requiring teams of no more than three (undergraduates) to complete all the work from research, modeling, solving, validation, and paper writing on a specified problem within a limited span of time. The topics covers many fields such as economics, management, environment, resources, ecology, medicine, security, and futuristic science and technology, etc. The competition intends to examine the participants’ ability to research problems and solve problems and their teamwork spirit.

This year, RUC students not only won prizes in Interdisciplinary Modeling Competition, the field in which they traditionally good at, but also made a breakthrough in Mathematical Modeling Competition, which requires a stronger background in science and technology. Two out of the five teams wining the Outstanding Winner COMAP Scholarship Award are the MCM participating teams, marking encouraging progress in RUC’s science and technology education.

In recent years, RUC has been devoted to the construction of science and technology disciplines, making continuous efforts to organize mathematical modeling competitions, cross-disciplinary knowledge competitions, and scientific and technological innovation activities. Since the beginning of the organizing and training of this competition, the Mathematical Modeling Steering Group of the School of Mathematics, RUC has been organizing competition-related Q&A and experience-sharing activities for the participating students, and has mobilized all the resources to provide assistance for the participating students.

Winning teams of the Outstanding Winner

Team 1:

This team consists of 3 students:

Jiahao Zhao, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence

Wang Qipeng, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Information

Xu Yuxuan, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Public Administration and Policy

“During the preparation process, we scrutinized how the Outstanding Winner groups in previous years put their thoughts into action and their innovations. In terms of innovation, we referred to the idea of combining grid search and gradient boosting tree in previous years, and in terms of drawing diagrams, we also referred to OUR work of the grand prizes in previous years, and used think cell to reproduce and beautify many Python drawn diagrams. The award is not only a recognition of our academic ability, but also the best reward for everyone's persistent efforts!”

Team 2:

This team consists of 2 students:

Li Yanheng, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Philosophy

Gan Ling, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, Renmin Business School

In the preparation stage of the competition, we read lots of excellent papers from previous years and studied mainstream algorithms to improve our ability of mathematical modeling and English paper writing. During the competition, we overcame a lot of difficulties with continuous attempts and perseverance, collected as much data as possible by expanding the scope of data acquisition, optimized and improved the model, and tried our best to make the model achieve better results. It was a challenging and rewarding journey, and we are proud of everyone's dedication and hard work!

Team 3:

This team consists of 3 students:

Li Shanyue, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Finance

Yang Yuchun Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, College of Finance

Su Huixue, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence

From the collection and processing of data to the construction and verification of models, the challenges we faced were mounting as the competition unfolded, and we deeply realized the importance of teamwork. Through day and night discussions and paper writing and revision, we learned how to express ideas and results clearly and accurately, and honed our programming skills, logical thinking skills and problem-solving skills. This experience is an important milestone in our academic journey and will continue to inspire us to pursue excellence and explore new knowledge.

Team 4:

This team consists of 3 students:

Zheng Yujie, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Applied Economics

Liu Ziy, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Applied Economics

Jiang Zhandao, 2022 undergraduate student, Class of 2022, School of Finance

During the four-day competition, our team members fully taped their respective strengths and specialties, cooperated silently, encouraged each other, and worked together to complete the task, including the setting of boundary conditions and variables, the acquisition and cleaning of data and information, the construction and testing of mathematical models, the presentation of constructive opinions and the writing of the paper. This experience of learning and practicing has benefited us a lot. We will continue to work hard, keep seeking, and keep taking challenges!

Team 5:

This team consists of 3 students:

Chen Yiwen, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Finance

He Chenyang, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, School of Finance

Wang Jiamin, Undergraduate Student, Class of 2022, Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence

Every moment of paper writing in early mornings, every moment of heated debate on problems, and every moment of late-night revising constitute our unique competition experience, which make us deeply realize the importance of “complementary ability” and “win-win cooperation”. We will work even harder in the future and continue to forge ahead!

Warm applause for the award winners! We look forward to seeing more RUC students who are dare to explore more on higher and wider academic stage in the world!