Teams determined to have the best solution papers receive special recognition in the form of tuition scholarships for college education. For complete details on scholarships and recognition, read the Rules and Guidelines.
Finalist Awards
M3 Challenge Finalist Awards recognize the top six teams overall for outstanding mathematical approaches to the three main prompts in the Challenge problem. Finalist teams are invited to an expense paid trip to New York City.
- Champion: $20,000 team award
- Runner Up: $15,000 team award
- Third Place: $10,000 team award
- Finalist (three teams): $5,000 team award
Additional Awards
- M3 Challenge Semi-finalist: six team awards of $1,500
- M3 Challenge Honorable Mention: 19 team awards of $1,000
- Certificates for all participants
SPARK Awards
For teams that develop Solutions with Passion, Resourcefulness, and Knowledge. These awards recognize teams from Title 1 eligible schools in the U.S. that demonstrate excellence and creativity in solving one or more parts of the Challenge problem. Thank you to the Hilda & Preston Davis Foundation for their generous support of the SPARK Awards.
- SPARK Winner: $3,000 team scholarship
- SPARK Runner-Up: $2,000 team scholarship
- SPARK Third Place: $1,000 team scholarship
Complete eligibility requirements are in the official Rules and Guidelines.
Technical Computing Awards
MATLAB Technical Computing Awards recognize teams for outstanding use of MATLAB in solving the Challenge problem. To be eligible for these awards, teams must perform the majority of their coding in MATLAB but are free to use additional programming languages.
Award Amounts
- MATLAB Technical Computing Winner:
$3,000 team award - MATLAB Technical Computing Runner Up: $2,000 team award
- MATLAB Technical Computing Third Place: $1,000 team award
New to technical computing? Learn technical computing.
Trip to New York City
Finalist teams are invited to an expense paid trip to New York City.
- Finalist teams present their solution to a panel of Ph.D. mathematicians
- The team delivering the best presentation of the day–judged for clarity, presence, and polish–will also win the Outstanding Communication of Results Award (an additional $500 team scholarship award)
