I attended CTY three times but I definitely wasn't one of those "genius"es. I was a goddamn stubborn nerd who wasnt smart enough not to give up. I remember the fundamentals of comp Sci course finished with a short section on C and I amused myself not implementing data structures as assigned but seeing what sorts of segfaults lead to what pop up messages...

There were real smart people there. I mean they just took one look at a red black tree and just got it. Not me I sweat all the way through that stuff.