Quaker Fall Open [CALI mirror] @ UPenn - 12/5/15

[cchiego]

The Penn Quizbowl Team, a student organization at the University of Pennsylvania, is pleased to announce our Quaker Fall Open (QFO), to be held on December 5th on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA.

Location and Time: The tournament will take place on December 5th on the Penn Campus. A logistical email with the full schedule and exact locations will be sent out to registered teams closer to the tournament, but plan on arriving around 8:30 AM. We will aim for at least 9 rounds for all teams, but the exact format will depend on the number of teams. Expect a standard morning round-robin with an afternoon rebracket.

Questions: QFO will be a mirror of the CALI question set. This is a regular-difficulty high school question set.

New to Quizbowl Team Discount: We would especially like to encourage schools who have not played quizbowl before to send teams. Thus there will be only a $30 fee for initial team from any school playing in its first quizbowl tournament on pyramidal questions within the last 3 years (IU competitions do not count against this regardless of the question source). Other financial arrangements can be made if needed for new teams; contact us to discuss.

Novice Division: If we have sufficient numbers (at least 8 teams), we will run a novice division. All teams composed entirely of players who have never played quizbowl before (including new schools) as well as teams consisting only of 9th graders (or younger) are eligible for this division.

Initial Team Cap: 24 Teams. We have room capacity to expand up to 36, but we need to be sure of our moderator supply. As a result, we are initially limiting schools to bringing only up to 2 teams each; all additional teams will be placed on a waitlist.

Team Size: Up to 6 students per team with up to 4 playing at any one time

Fees and Discounts:
$70 per initial team, $60 for each additional team from the same school.
-$5 per working buzzer set
-$10 travel discount for traveling over 150 miles
-$25 for an experienced moderator

Payment: Payment is due on the morning of the tournament. All checks must be made out to either "Sarita Jamil" or "Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania" (must be exact wording). If you bring a check not made out to either "Sarita Jamil" or "Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania" and have no other method of paying for the tournament, you will be subject to the $25 late payment penalty. If you require a pre-tournament invoice in order to have a check cut, let us know as soon as possible and we can get you an invoice.

To Register: Email our team account [note the gmail account here, not an individual person's] at [email protected] with the number of teams, number of buzzers, and if you'll be bringing an experienced moderator to QFO. Let us know at the same address if you have any additional questions.

[cchiego]

Field Update as of 11/23

Teams in bold have confirmed; if your team is not bolded, please email us to confirm
*Denotes first-ever pyramidal weekend tournament

Registered:
Charter (4/0)
Great Valley (2/1)
PALCS (1/0)
Gunston (1/1)
Central Bucks East (1/1)
East Brunswick (2/0)
George Washington Carver HSES* (0/1)
Friends Select* (0/1)
Norristown Area* (0/1)
Philadelphia Central* (0/2)
SLA* (0/2)
High Tech (3/0)
Wissahickon (1/1)
Carlisle (1/1)
Delaware Valley (1/2)
Franklin Towne Charter* (0/1)
Renaissance 0/2
Total: 17/17

[cchiego]

After the next few registrations, I am going to have to put a soft cap on the field until we can secure the services of more moderators.

Our capacity is 36 teams based on the number of rooms we have. Our moderator capacity right now is 24-28 teams, so our ability to fully expand the field depends on getting more experienced, competent moderators. I am working on my end to secure more, but it is strongly encouraged that teams who want to expand the field do so as well. Teams who can bring a moderator will get preference in getting in after the soft cap.

My goal is 18/18 open/novice for a total of 36 teams. We are currently well on the way to this point in both categories. The novice division is in a bit of flux because I'm working with a number of schools to set up permanent teams and it's unclear just how many spots those will take up.

I am also now seeking to use SCOP for the novice division as I think it would be more appropriate for the newcomers, many of whom have only picked up a buzzer in the last couple of weeks.

[cchiego]

Field has been capped and filled (6 weeks out!) at 30. We will expand to 36 (18 open/18 novice) only if we can secure additional competent moderators. I suspect we will be able to, but can't be assured of that right now. I am also anticipating at least a few drops, but am working to pre-emptively make teams understand that registration means commitment as much as possible given the high amount of interested teams.

Waitlist procedures:

First Priority:
Schools already in touch with us about attending (i.e. Carlisle and Bishop Eustace, if they commit to register)

Second Priority:
Schools who can bring a moderator

Third Priority:
All other schools

Note that Penn State is hosting its own novice tournament on this same day, so if our field fills and we keep getting interest we will start referring teams to that tournament.

We will be using CALI for the open division and SCOP for the novice division.

[deviziak]

Please add Delaware Valley HS to the wait list for two teams and one experienced moderator.

[cchiego]

After a succession of drops (after reminding teams about the SATs), the waitlist is now emptied and I'm waiting to hear back on confirmation from a few more teams to confirm their spots in the field.

While I'm not ready to re-open registration, I am more confident in our moderator numbers so we will now start taking the C and D teams of any interested schools for the waitlist. Based on previous information, the waitlist currently looks like:
[Edit: Waitlist is emptied]

Any teams wishing to add or remove teams from the waitlist should email us ([email protected]) to let us know. I appreciate the patience of all teams as we work to ensure that as many schools as possible can participate.

[cchiego]

All the C and D teams on the waitlist are now into the field. Right now, we have 17-18 staffers and 28 teams confirmed (with 5 teams from the waitlist pending), but we could always use another staffer or two if there are people out there.

If any additional teams are interested in registering, you must email us (and there are no guarantees) ASAP, but we might be able to do something depending on how the final schedule ends up looking like.

The full logistical email and explanation of the format will come by Thanksgiving, but plan on the opening meeting starting at 8:30 AM and the tournament lasting about 8-9 rounds for the novice teams and 10-12 rounds for the open teams.

Thanks to all teams for working with us as we worked to get through the field!

[snadkarni]

Middlesex county academy would like to register 2 teams.

[cchiego]

Middlesex county academy would like to register 2 teams.

This is a bit late to sign up, but there's a chance we could fit y'all if teams drop or we get a few more moderators to commit. Email us at [email protected] and we can discuss more.

Right now we have confirmed a 34-team field with 17 teams in each division. All teams should have received a logistical email with the full details of when and where to be as well as the format.

[kitkat]

In the open division finals, High Tech A beat Charter A (who we had earlier lost to in the playoffs). Great Valley A beat East Brunswick A for third.

Just wanted to say thank you to Chris, the UPenn quizbowl team, and all the moderators/staffers for an extremely well-run tournament. All of our readers were fantastic and able to finish rounds quickly and efficiently. We finished finals by 4:15pm (!!) and were able to get back at a reasonable hour.

[cchiego]

Congratulations to High Tech A and Friends Select A for winning the open and novice divisions, respectively, of the 2015 Quaker Fall Open. The final standings for each division were as follows:

Open Division:
1. High Tech A
2. Wilmington Charter A
3. Great Valley A
4. East Brunswick A

Novice Division:
1. Friends Select A
2. Central Bucks East B
3. Carver HSES A
4. Friends Select B

Full stats for the prelims, playoffs, and combined are available here. Please feel free to email any stats corrections to [email protected] and we will attempt to get to them as we can.

Thanks to Delaware Valley for providing a last-minute fill-in team that shored up the schedule, the entire Rutgers team coming down to help out, Bern McCauley of Great Valley for selflessly and effectively reading, Victor Pavao for coming down from Villanova, Adam Swift for volunteering to help, Ben Zhang coming down from Columbia, and Brian McNamara for reading and working with several of the novice teams. Many thanks also to all the Penn staffers as well for easing the burdens of TDing by stepping up to help when needed. And of course, thanks to all the sponsors and coaches who took time out of their Saturdays to bring their students to compete.