<p>Is anyone interested in algorithmic programming? Summer would be a good time to work on the free internet training materials for next year's USA computing olympiad. The olympiad involves a series of free internet contests during the school year, leading to selection of the top students for a free training camp. Four students will get a free trip to compete in the int'l competition (last year it was in Greece. This year it's Poland. Next year Mexico). Colleges love this sort of thing (the majority of the top kids go on to MIT). You have to already know how to program in C/C++ or Java (or, I think, Pascal), but then the training pages will give you everything else you need. Even if you don't get anywhere in the contests, the time you spend on the training materials will help you if you take an algorithms course in college (required for CS majors).
<a href="http://www.usaco.org%5B/url%5D">www.usaco.org</a></p>