Letter Candles

Problem Overview

• Minimize the box cost: sum of squares of each letter’s count in S after removing up to M candles.
• Input: N, M, and lowercase string S (length N). Output: smallest possible cost (integer).
• Context: Alice’s letter candle box where cost depends on letter distribution; she may discard up to M.
• From Intuit interviews; a coding interview problem and interview question on cost from character counts.