Accord USACO Classes (2009-2010)

Accord USACO Classes are year-round programs offered by Advanced Math and Science Program at Accord Institute to challenge and motivate students qualified for bronze, silver or gold level in USACO competitions. There will be lectures, homework assignments, exams, motivational gatherings and activities throughout the year.

Who are the Instructors?

Most of the classes will be taught by Accord Institute AMSP CS Teacher: Dr. Fatih Gelgi. The remaining classes will be taught by distinguished guest lecturers who have competition participation and training experience.

Dr. Gelgi is a former computer olympian who received bronze medal in International Olympiads in Informatics (IOI), 1999. He received Ph.D. in Computer Science from Arizona State University in 2007. He has been training computer olympians for more than 10 years in many different levels – from beginner to most advanced (IOI level). His former students received several medals in national and international competitions. He was the computer coach of Zarathustra Brady who was ranked 5th in USACO in 2007. He has been serving as a USACO coach since 2006.

Program Description

Requirements: Eligibility criteria is the USACO level of the student; it has to be bronze or above. A student with programming and good problem solving skills can compete in bronze level. Former bronze/silver/gold level students can directly start whereas the remaining students need to take USACO October Qualification Exam to determine their levels. For more information on USACO, please see http://www.usaco.org.

Classes: The classes will start with bronze level warm-up questions. Throughout the year the level will increase silver, gold then finally international level. In USACO, bronze level requires good programming skill without high level algorithms. In silver level, the student is assumed to master common algorithms. In the gold level, the student must be proficient in algorithms including the advanced ones especially Dynamc Programming. Our program is aligned with USACO curriculum. The lecturing will be done by solving problems at USACO bronze, silver, gold or international level and demonstrating tricks and strategies related to the topic. Homework assignments will be given beforehand and the students are expected to come to each class prepared.

Homework: After each lecture, a homework assignment will be given to students with a set of competition level problems. Students are expected to spend a fair amount of time on each problem. In addition to these, individual homework assignments might be given to students from suggested books to strengthen their topics.

Exams: Students will be given practice exams, former official exams or similar level exams. They are supposed to take them as real exams, with a time limit, and return their answer sheets for grading.

Motivational Activities: There will be occasional gatherings such as dinner, BBQ, picnic, etc with the students and their families to increase student motivation and to make a positive friendly environment between the students, parents, and the teachers.

AMSP Camps: Students are encouraged to participate in AMSP National Camps, one-week camps in Winter and Summer. The camp expenses and tuition are not included in the class tuition.

Schedule for USACO Class

There will be 10 two-hour sessions. The sessions will meet in Orange County. The exact location will be announced later on. The schedule of the classes is as follows

Class-01 Oct-31 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-02 Nov-21 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-03 Dec-12 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-04 Jan-2 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-05 Jan-23 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-06 Feb-13 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-07 Feb-27 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-08 Mar-20 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-09 Apr-03 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm
Class-10 Apr-17 Saturday 10:00-12:00pm

Tuition and Fees

$700 for USACO Class  (20 hours of instruction)

The payment should be paid in full before the second class by a check made payable to "Accord Institute of Education Research".

Application Process: Eligibility and Admissions

If you would like to participate in one or more of the classes, please fill-in the application form below:

Application Form for USACO Class

Please refer to the class description for eligibility details. Once the application form has been submitted, Accord AMSP Team will review the application and admit some of the students to the program based on their exam scores and application order. Accord AMSP Team will do their best to keep the level of the students in each class similar. We will send the parents of the admitted students a Terms and Conditions Form and once they sign and return us the Form, they will be officially enrolled in the Class.

The application deadline is Friday October 30th, 2009 but we encourage you to apply early because the decisions for admissions will be on an on-going basis and once the class cap is reached the remaining students will be put on a waiting list. Late applications will be considered if there is any space available.

Please contact AMSP Team at amsp@accordeducation.org for further questions. Thank you for your interest in the Accord USACO Classes!

Accord AMSP Team