Cornell Mathematical Contest in Modeling

Short summary: CMCM is an annual university-wide competition for undergraduates (from freshmen to seniors). It attracts students from many majors/departments. Each team of 3 undergraduates works on an open-ended ("real-world") problem, builds a mathematical model, obtains a solution based on it, and writes a detailed paper (proving the feasibility of the team's model and solution) - all this in the space of less than 4 days!
You can: brainstorm with your two teammates, use any reference materials either printed or on the web, write your own software or utilize publicly available to validate your model.
You cannot: consult with anyone besides your teammates, submit your solutions after the deadline, or remain bored in the process.

CMCM is usually conducted in November -- the exact schedule for the current year will be posted below. Two to four winning teams are then selected to represent Cornell at the international MCM -- an annual contest conducted in January/February and attracting 15,000+ teams from 20+ countries.

Reasons to participate in CMCM:

• research experience;
• $400+ in prizes every year;
• looks cool on your resume;
• winners of CMCM qualify for the International MCM (thousands of teams, prestigious prizes, looks really cool on your resume).

For those interested:

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Previous CMCM Time-line in 2025-26:

Oct 30, 2025: Information/training session; 4:30-6:00pm, location: 253 Malott Hall.

Nov 3, 2025: Information/training session; 4:30-6:00pm, location: 253 Malott Hall.

Nov 7, 2025: Cornell MCM starts at 5pm. (The assignment will be posted here.)

Nov 10, 2025: Cornell MCM ends at 9:30am.

Jan 29-Feb 2, 2026: The winners of CMCM 2025 represent Cornell at the international MCM 2026.

Modeling problems are selected from all fields of science, engineering, and industry.

A quick note to visitors from outside Cornell University.

The full list of problems used in CMCM:

A few representative problems from the international MCM:

• estimating the maximum "safe" number of people for a given type of public facilities;
• studying hunting strategies for velociraptor dinosaurs based on fossil data;
• comparing various grading policies for fighting the "grade inflation";
• providing the guidelines for selecting the design of bicycle wheels to optimize the performance on a given track;
• considering the effects of different airline overbooking strategies on the overall profitability.

• MCM is not so much about what you already know , but more about what you can learn quickly in the new application area.
• Last year 15,105 teams participated representing institutions from 22 countries.
• It's worth noting that one of Cornell teams won the MCM contest in 2009 (they were ranked among the top 9 teams, all of which were rated "Outstanding") and have received a special award from INFORMS. In 2012 one of Cornell teams got the 2nd highest ranking ("Finalist") and a special award from another sponsor (MAA). Yet another team from Cornell won the related "Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling" (ICM 2012) -- their solution was ranked "Outstanding" (among the top 7) and they also received a special award from INFORMS.
• We will have two to four teams representing Cornell next year (selected among CMCM winners).
• Several preparation sessions will be held for the potential participants.

Interested, puzzled, or simply curious?

Send your questions to Alex Townsend (townsend@cornell.edu), and/or attend a practice session.

Organized by:

Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications (COMAP).

Sponsored by:

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS),

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM),

Mathematical Association of America (MAA).

Some other MCM pages :

Kelly Cline's Guide to MCM,

University of Puget Sound,

University of Washington,

University of Maryland,

Brown University,

Temple University.