2011 National History Bee National Finals - Sun. 4/17 in DC

[Great Bustard]

The National History Bee and Bowl is proud to announce the inaugural National Championships of the National History Bee, to be held on Sunday, April 17 in Washington, DC and at Mount Vernon. This is as far as we know, the first ever credible National Championships of any sort for a buzzer-based academic quiz tournament for individual high school students, and we are excited to be making some history of our own with this. We will offer both Varsity and Junior Varsity Divisions; Junior Varsity students may be middle school students (this is a rule change) or 9th and 10th graders. Students are guaranteed eight preliminary rounds to be held on Sunday morning. The rounds will be themed and deal with different eras and locations in history (see http://www.historybee.com/national-championships/). The top students (at least the top 10 Varsity and top 5 JV, though more likely the top 16 Varsity and the top 8 JV) will be bused out to Mount Vernon to compete in the Finals early Sunday afternoon. The format for the Finals has not yet been determined, and will be a function of how many students compete, which in turn is a function of how many students Mount Vernon and the National History Bee can bus out to Mount Vernon, keeping in mind that some teams will have cars, and that teams will need to come out, even if only 1 student is competing. All qualifying students in any case will be bused to avoid the possibility of students getting lost en route.
The preliminary round matches on Sunday morning will be held at a DC high school. We’re working on this and hope to have the venue announced shortly. Dress is semi-formal for the entirety of the National Championships of the Bee, as students who qualify for the finals at Mount Vernon will not have time to change, and semi-formal attire is appropriate for a National Championship at such a historic location.

PRIZES
Between the National History Bee and our sister tournament for teams, the National History Bowl, we are guaranteeing a total of at least $2500 in prizes and scholarships for this year (the breakdown of this is forthcoming). Winners of the JV and Varsity National History Bees will each get a $2500 scholarship exclusively for AFS Intercultural Programs (foreign exchange and language study) as well.
In partnership with ACE Quiz Bowl Camps, we are pleased to announce that the winners of the Varsity and JV National History Bees will also each receive a full scholarship to the ACE camp of their choice this summer.
Trophies/Plaques/Something nice looking to keep will be awarded to the top students. There will also be two permanent trophies that will have the JV and Varsity winners’ names inscribed on them. These will be presented in a ceremony at the winning students’ schools or a nearby historically appropriate site in the weeks following the tournament.
Finally, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will likely be providing book prizes as well, and there may be additional prizes from other sponsors too.

QUALIFICATION
Students who finished either as a finalist or in the top third of their division at the state bees (either JV or Varsity) qualify for the National History Bee National Championships. 9th and 10th graders who played in a Varsity Division at the State Bees and qualified can compete either in the JV or Varsity Divisions. If they did at all well, they can play in the JV Finals – send me an email if this situation applies to you or your student(s).
If you did not get a chance to play in the Bee at the State level and would like a second chance to do so, we MAY be able to offer a second chance qualifier by means of a 100 question multiple choice test similar to the two “practice quizzes” online at http://www.historybee.com. This would be administered Friday evening, April 15, most likely around 8pm or so. You would need to bring your own laptop for this. This would likely cost about $20 to cover room rental costs. We do not know how many spaces would be available this way; certainly though, not every student who took the test would qualify (probably somewhere between the top ½ and top ¼ would). Stay tuned for more details on this. Also, if you have your heart set on competing in DC and are going to be competing in a State Bee on or after March 12, and you need to make travel arrangements in advance, send me a message or email, and we’ll discuss a way for you to take the qualifying test at your school.
Finally, if you did not qualify for the Bee, you MAY be able to compete in a consolation tournament (where we’d still have prizes) on Sunday morning. This is dependent on space being available for this, and even if space is available, slots in the consolation tournament would be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Again, stay tuned and contact me if you or your student(s) would be interested in this.
And of course, there’s still plenty of time to qualify for Washington at a State History Bee. Please see http://www.historybee.com/regionalsites for a list of tournaments – we have about 26 planned (sic, or is that “sick?”) in the next eight weeks. The students who have been playing in the Bee so far have really had a lot of fun with it- this may be the only opportunity you ever get to play a form of singles quiz bowl at a convenient location while in high school.

QUESTIONS AND GAME FORMAT
As of Feb. 10, the National Championships of the National History Bee does not have an official question provider; this may change in the coming weeks. If not, NHB staff and advisory board members (with experience) along with perhaps other experienced writers will write and edit the questions. All questions used at the National Championships of the National History Bee will be long-form pyramidal tossups. There will likely be 40 questions instead of 35 in each round. If there are 40 questions, students will need to fill a quota of 10 questions correct to earn bonus points. To accommodate as many students as possible, we will almost certainly have 9 or 10 students per room.
Otherwise, standard History Bee rules apply (e.g. 3 incorrect answers kill the question; the third incorrect answer before the question is done gets a -1, unless bonus points are earned, the score for each round is the # of questions each student answers correctly, and advancement to the finals is done based on cumulative scores in all rounds). There is no power. If we have 10 questions needed for the quota (i.e. if we have 40 questions in each round), then students would earn 6 bonus points upon finishing on or before question 15, 5 bonus points upon finishing on or before question 20, and so on.
The Finals at Mount Vernon, as mentioned above, will have a format to be determined. This will depend on available space, time, and the number of students competing. It will obviously though be buzzer-based, probably feature primarily head to head matches, and have enough questions in each portion (especially the final portion), to determine worthy Varsity and JV National Champions (i.e. certainly more than the “first to five” format that we use for time reasons at the finals of the State Bees).
Upon the conclusion of the Finals at Mount Vernon, a reception will be held. We expect certain dignitaries to be in attendance for this. Competition will conclude by 3:30 on Sunday, with the reception concluding by 4:30 to allow as many teams as possible to return home Sunday evening.

LODGING AND COST
The Hamilton Crowne Plaza, a nice hotel in downtown DC is the official hotel though teams are welcome to stay elsewhere. However, the rate we have at the Crowne Plaza is $170 a night for quad occupancy (they even have some rollaways and air mattresses). Since this is a weekend in the high season in DC, this is a good rate, especially since the hotel is within walking distance of the non-Mount Vernon venue sites. When reserving rooms YOU MUST say you are with the National History Bee and Bowl to get this rate. We have about 70 rooms left and expect to sell out or come very close to it.
The entry cost is a base fee of $60. Entry for students who finished first in their state bee (in either JV or Varsity) is $40 and entry for students who finished second in the state bee (again, either JV or Varsity) costs $50. There are no other discounts for the National Finals of the Bee, though there are for the Nationals of the Bowl. See more at: http://www.historybowl.com/national-championships/

REGISTERED STUDENTS (Update 2/14)

VARSITY
Logan Hayward, St. Louis University HS, St. Louis, MO, 2nd place finisher in Missouri-St. Louis
Weston Pallay, Bridgeport HS, Bridgeport, WV, 2nd place finisher in WV

JUNIOR VARSITY
Sai Nelanuthala, Bridgeport HS, Bridgeport, WV, 2nd place finisher in WV

It’s not worth providing a list of “expressed interest” students here, as it is assumed that the vast majority of students who qualified for the Bee who will be participating in the National Championships of the National History Bowl in Washington on April 16 will also play in the Bee on the 17th. See the thread on the Nationals of the Bowl for the lists of registered, likely, and interested teams.
For more information about all aspects of the National History Bee, see http://www.historybee.com or just send me an email or message here. Good luck and hope to see you in DC!