If you find the problems presented in Programming Challenges or The Algorithm Design Manual interesting, you are the kind of person who should think about going to graduate school. Graduate study in Computer Science involves courses in advanced topics that build upon what you learned as an undergraduate, but more importantly doing new and original research in the area of your choice.

Making the finals of the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest or the International Olympiad on Informatics, or even being a top finisher in a regional contest is a tremendous achievement. It clearly suggests that you have the right stuff for advanced study. I would certainly encourage you to continue your studies, ideally by coming to work with me (Steven Skiena) at Stony Brook! My group does research in a variety of interesting topics in algorithms and discrete mathematics.

Stony Brook provides full financial support for all admitted Ph.D. students, including all tuition and fees plus enough of a stipend to live on comfortably if not lavishly.

Here are some hints to help you with the application process:

• If you did successfully participate in a programming contest like IOI, ACM ICPC, or Topcoder be sure to mention what team you were on and where you finished in your admissions essay!
• Also be sure to mention any special algorithmically-related projects or training that you have done. Have you written/published any technical papers? Have you have solved an impressive number of problems on www.programming-challenges.com, the UVA judge, or Topcoder? If so, let us know in your essay.
• I am not a member of our department's admission committee, and thus cannot give you any insight what your chances of admission are. Thus it does not help you to send me email with your credentials prior to your application.

  These days, every Computer Science faculty member gets a tremendous number of unsolicited emails from students wanting to know their admission chances or whether the faculty member has a research assistantship to give. As described above, Stony Brook provides full financial support for all admitted Ph.D. students, usually initially as a teaching assistant. I, like almost all other faculty, do not support Ph.D students as research assistants until after they pass our Ph.D qualifying exam, which is typically taken nine months after your arrival at Stony Brook.

• If you think you are interested in working in algorithms with me, feel free to mention it in your admissions essay. After you have been admitted to our department, I will be very happy to discuss our program and my research with you. Feel free to send me email at this point.
• The deadlines and forms for applying to Stony Brook are available from www.cs.sunysb.edu. Feel free to contact our graduate admissions secretary at graduate@cs.sunysb.edu. Good luck!

Steven Skiena
Professor, Computer Science
SUNY Stony Brook