Barton was the first student to win four gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad, Barton is one of seven people to have placed among the five top ranked competitors (who are themselves not ranked against each other) in the
William Lowell Putnam Competition four times (2001–2004). Barton was a member of the
MIT team which finished second in 2001 and first in 2003 and 2004. the largest margin in IOI history at the time. Barton was a member of the 2nd and 5th place
MIT team at the
ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, and reached the finals in the
Topcoder Open (2004), semi-finals (2003, 2006), the
TopCoder Collegiate Challenge (2004), semi-finals (2006), TCCC Regional finals (2002), and TopCoder Invitational semi-finalist (2002). He teamed with Tomek Czajka and John Dethridge to win the internet problem solving contest in 2015. ==Other accomplishments==