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The Harvard Computing Contest Club (formerly known as the Harvard ACM Team) sends one or more teams of 3 undergraduates each to compete in the ICPC Northeastern Regional Contest. The team that does best, if it does well enough, goes on to complete in the ICPC North American Championship Contest, and if that team does well enough there, it goes on to the ICPC World Finals. In 2023, it will be in Sharm El-Shiekh, Egypt.

In the recent past Harvard has sent a team to the World Finals about two out of every three or four years.

In order to get to World Finals a team should fairly quickly know how to solve at least 6 of the 11-13 problems on a typical World Finals contest. See the World Finals Past Problem Sets.

Generally the better Harvard teams can solve a problem if they can write good pseudo-code for a problem; where in this case the pseudo-code need only contain a precise specification of the data structures and a very rough outline of any intricate parts of the algorithm. So another way of stating the idea in the last paragraph is to say that in order to get to World Finals a team should be able to fairly quickly produce such pseudo-code for at least 6 of the 11-13 problems on a typical World Finals. You can test your pseudo-code by using it to write code that you submit to Kattis which will automatically test your code against the judge's input/output that was used during the World Finals.

Therefore reading World Finals problems and reducing them to such pseudo-code is excellent practice.

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ICPC ... Northeast North America ICPC Regional

Results from recent years:

• Harvard 1+ got 8 out of 12 problems and took 11th in the 2022 North American Championship.
• Harvard 1+ got 9 out of 12 problems and took 4th in the 2022 Northeast North America Regional Contest.
• Harvard 1 got 6 out of 12 problems and took 16th in the 2021 North American Championship.
• Harvard 1 got 11 out of 12 problems and took 5th in the 2021 Northeast North America Regional Contest.
• Harvard got 4 out of 13 problems and took 42nd in the 2021 North America Championship.
• Harvard 1 got 7 out of 13 problems and took 15th in the 2021 Northeast North America East Division Championship. Harvard 2 got 5 problems and took 34th.
• Harvard 1 got 11 out of 18 problems and took 7th in the 2020 Northeast North America Regional Contest. Harvard 2 got 9 problems and took 12th.
• Harvard got 9 out of 15 problems and took 16th in the 2020 ICPC World Finals, as well as being the only team to solve problem N. They were 3rd among North American teams, finishing behind MIT (which took 9th) and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (which took 11th).
• Harvard got 8 out of 12 problems and took 3rd in the 2019 North American Championship, behind MIT and Georgia Tech.
• Harvard got 8 out of 9 problems and took 2nd in the 2019 regionals, behind MIT.
• Harvard 1 got 9 out of 11 problems and took 3rd in the 2019 BOSPRE preliminary, behind 2 MIT teams. Harvard 2 got 7 problems and took 5th.
• Harvard got 6 out of 11 problems and tied with 20 other teams for 21th place. at the 2019 World Finals. MIT got 9 problems and placed 2nd. Harvard tied for 2nd place among North American teams with Stanford and University of Texas at Austin.
• Harvard got 8 out of 9 problems and took 2nd in the 2018 regionals, behind MIT.
• Harvard 1 got 7 out of 10 problems and took 3rd in the 2018 BOSPRE preliminary, behind 2 MIT teams. Harvard 2 got 4 problems and took 4th.
• Harvard got 6 out of 11 problems and tied with 16 other teams for 14th place. at the 2018 World Finals. MIT got 7 problems and placed 11th.
• Harvard got 8 out of 9 problems and took 2nd in the 2017 regionals, behind MIT.
• Harvard 1 got 8 out of 10 problems and took 4th in the 2017 BOSPRE preliminary, behind 3 MIT teams. Harvard 2 also got 8 problems but took more time, and placed 5th.
• Harvard got 3 out of 8 problems and took 4th in the 2016 regionals.
• Harvard 2 got 5 out of 10 problems and took 5th in the 2016 BOSPRE preliminary, behind 4 MIT teams. Harvard ENeRgy got 4 problems and placed 6th.
• Harvard got 10 out of 13 problems and took 3rd at the 2016 World Finals, winning a Gold Medal and $6,000. They were also 1st among North American Teams. MIT was 6th overall and 2nd among North American Teams.
• Harvard got 8 out of 8 problems and took 1st in the 2015 regionals, earning a spot at the World Finals.
• Harvard 1 got 8 out of 8 problems and took 1st in the 2015 BOSPRE preliminary. Harvard 2 got 5 problems and placed 4th.
• Harvard got 8 out of 13 problems in the 2015 World Finals, and tied with 13 other teams for 15th place.
• Harvard 1 got 5 out of 8 problems and took 2nd in the 2014 regionals at RIT, behind MIT.
• Harvard 1 got 5 out of 8 problems and took 3rd in the 2014 BOSPRE preliminary, behind 2 MIT teams.
• Harvard No Bz. Model got 5 out of 8 problems and took 4th in the 2013 regionals at RIT.
• Harvard No Bz. Model got 7 out of 8 problems and took 2nd in the 2013 BOSPRE preliminary, behind MIT. Harvard Lath 213b got 4 problems and took 4th. Harvard 3 go 3 problems and took 5th.
• Harvard A Byte of Pi got 3 out of 8 problems and took 8th in the in the 2012 regionals at RIT.
• Harvard A Byte of Pi got 5 out of 7 problems and took 1st in the 2012 BOSPRE preliminary. Harvard 2 got 2 problems and took 6th.
• Harvard got 7 out of 12 problems in the 2012 World Finals, placing 7th overall and 1st among North American teams, winning silver medals and $3,000.
• Harvard got 8 out of 8 problems and took 2nd, 10 minutes behind MIT, in the 2011 regionals at RIT, and thereby qualified for World Finals.
• Harvard 1 got 6 out of 8 problems and took 3rd in the 2011 BOSPRE preliminary, behind two MIT teams. Harvard 2 got 5 problems and took 4th.
• Harvard got 2 out of 8 problems and took 2nd behind MIT in the 2010 regionals at RIT, but failed to qualify for World Finals.
• Harvard got 5 out of 7 problems and took 1st in the 2010 BOSPRE preliminary (beating MIT by a hair).
• Harvard got 7 out of 8 problems and took 3rd in the 2009 regionals at RIT.
• Harvard Caffeinated got 5 out of 6 problems and took 1st in the 2009 BOSPRE preliminary. Harvard 2 got 4 problems and took 2nd place. Harvard Hat of No Return and Square Root of Harvard 3 each got 3 problems and took 5th and 6th place.
• Harvard got 4 problems and took 5th in the 2008 regionals at RIT.
• Harvard 1 got all 7 problems and took 1st in the 2008 preliminary round at WNEC to advance to the 2008 regionals at RIT, while Harvard 2 got 5 problems and took 2nd.
• Harvard 1 got 4 problems and placed 3rd, behind MIT and Brown, at the 2007 regionals at RIT.
• Harvard 1 and Harvard 2 each solved 2 problems at the 2007 preliminary round at WNEC. Harvard 1, with the better time of the two teams, won 4th place on time, behind two MIT teams and McGill, and advanced to the regionals.
• Harvard 10 solved 1 problem and got honorable mention at the 2007 World Finals in Tokyo, Japan.
• Harvard 10 got 4 problems and placed 2nd, behind MIT, at the 2006 regionals at RIT, and thereby won the right to go to the 2007 World Finals.
• Harvard 10 got all 7 problems to take first place, beating out Harvard 1 and the Southern Connecticut Fighting Owls, who each got 6 problems, in the 2006 preliminary round at WNEC. Harvard 10 (that's binary) was composed of the students who placed 4th, 5th, and 7th in the Harvard Fall Selection Contest, whereas Harvard 1 was composed of students who placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.
• Harvard Ad Hoc got 4 problems and placed 3rd, behind MIT and Binghamton University, at the 2005 regionals at RIT.
• Harvard Ad Hoc got 6 problems and Harvard SQrT got 5 problems to place 2nd and 3rd behind MIT in the 2005 preliminary round at WNEC.
• Harvard 124 got three problems and placed 3rd in the 2004 regionals, behind MIT and University of New Brunswick.
• In the 2004 preliminary round at WNEC, Harvard 124, composed of students who placed 5th, 7th, and 8th in the Harvard Selection Contest, beat out by less than 2 minutes Harvard .*, composed of students who placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in the Selection Contest. Both teams got 6 problems.
• Harvard Lambda solved 5 problems and placed 9th in the 2004 World Finals at Prague, Czech Republic, winning Bronze Medals and $1,000.
• Harvard Lambda solved 5 problems and placed 2nd to MIT at the 2003 regionals.
• Harvard Lambda solved 7 problems and placed 2nd to MIT at the 2003 preliminaries. Harvard Mu solved 3 problems and placed 5th.
• Harvard solved 4 problems and placed 30th at the 2003 World Finals.
• Harvard solved 4 of 8 problems and placed 1st at the 2002 regionals, beating MIT again, and advancing to the 2003 World Finals.
• Harvard solved all 7 problems and placed 1st at the 2002 preliminaries, beating MIT, and advancing to the 2002 Regionals in Rochester, NY.
• Harvard solved 2 problems and did not place at the 2001 regionals in Westfield, MA.
• Harvard solved 5 problems and placed 2nd at the 2001 preliminaries, and advanced to the 2001 Regionals in Westfield, MA.
• Harvard solved 5 problems and placed 10th at the 2001 World Finals at Vancouver, Canada, earning each team member a $500 scholarship!
• Harvard solved 7 problems and placed 2nd at the 2000 regionals, and advanced to the 2001 World Finals in Vancouver, Canada.