SigmaCamp Next 2025: Entrance Exam
The Entrance Exam (EE) consists of problems prepared by the semilab instructors at SigmaCamp Next. At SigmaCamp Next, each student will attend one Semilab course for the whole week, meeting for two 1.5-hour sessions per day. You can take a look at the semilabs offered this year on our semilabs page here.
To help match you with the best semilab for your interests and skill level, the Entrance Exam is designed to reflect the topics of this year’s semilabs. Each semilab instructor has composed one problem related to their semilab and a skills questionnaire to help us understand your background. The problems are designed to give you a taste of the topics covered in the semilabs and to see whether you are excited to think deeply about the material.
How to Approach the Exam
- Choose no more than five semilabs that you are interested in and solve the problems and answer the skills questionnaires for them. We recommend submitting solutions and answering questionnaires to at least three semilabs.
- You do not need to fully solve a problem—we are most interested in seeing your thought process. Even if you only make partial progress, please submit your work!
- Explain your reasoning clearly: Even if you arrive at a correct answer, showing your steps and thought process is important. The most important for us is to see your thought process.
How Your Solutions Are Used
The Entrance Exam is not used as a strict placement test. Instead, your responses help us match you with the best semilab for your skills and interests. Demonstrating curiosity, effort, and engagement is more important than arriving at perfect solutions.
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to info@sigmacamp.org. We look forward to seeing your solutions!
How to prepare and submit your solution
All solutions must be submitted online. We encourage you to type up your answers, but some of the problems require math or chemical formulas, so you may want to handwrite your solutions. Handwritten solutions can be scanned (please save the scans in PDF format) and then submitted online. Allowed file formats are Word and PDF (except for CS problems, which need to be submitted as java or python files - see instructions in the Entrance Exam).
If handwriting solutions, please make sure that your work is easy to read, as a courtesy to the graders. Please and leave wide margins. Use a dark pencil or black pen, and cross out instead of making smudgy erasures.:) If you submit a solution that does not follow those general guidelines, we may ask you to resubmit.
Solutions for every problem must be saved as a separate file; you can submit them independently of each other (so you can submit solutions for one subject earlier than the other).
Submit your solution of EE
This form is closed now. It will be open during the next application period March 1 - April 15, 2026.
To submit your solution, you must be logged in to your student account.
*If the "Submit" button is inactive, check if you started your application here
Please make sure you submit the corresponding skills questionnaire with the solution to the semilab's problem! All the skills questionnaires are linked in the Entrance Exam PDF file under each semilab.