BHSAT XXIV at Yale (New Haven, CT, 2/14/15)

[Grace]

Yale Student Academic Competitions is pleased to announce that our twenty-fourth annual Bulldog High School Academic Tournament (BHSAT) will be held on Yale's campus on Saturday, February 14, 2015. The tournament will use untimed rounds of 20 tossups and bonuses from our housewritten BHSAT set. Teams should note that this tournament falls during Presidents' Day Weekend.

As is traditional, the BHSAT question set is constructed by members of the Yale team, and this year's set will be head-edited by Jacob Reed. The last four iterations of this tournament have consistently garnered praise, and you can find more information about this year's set here.

Location and Parking

In-person registration will begin at 8 A.M. with the aim of starting the opening meeting at 8:45 A.M. and the first round by 9 A.M. The tournament will take place at William L. Harkness Hall (WLH) on Yale's main campus (map), located at 100 Wall Street, New Haven, Connecticut. Teams are strongly encouraged to arrive at 7:45 A.M. to leave time to find parking.

Many Yale parking lots within two to three blocks of WLH are open to the public on weekends for free, including Lots 51, 77, 78, and 78W, shown here. Street parking is also available, as is garage parking in the Grove Street and Audubon Court garages, shown here.

PACE Affiliation

BHSAT at Yale has been Platinum-Certified by PACE, meaning that the top 25% of the field will qualify for the PACE National Scholastic Championship in Reston, Virginia, on the weekend of June 6, 2015.

Registration

If you would like to register your high school for BHSAT at Yale, please fill out this Google form. Please direct any questions to [email protected].

We are capping the BHSAT field at 32 teams and will be maintaining a waiting list for teams beyond that. Spots will likely go quickly, so please register as soon as possible. Posts in this thread are fine for "expressing interest" but will not count as registrations. If registered teams indicate that they can bring enough staffers, we may be able to increase the field cap.

Please note we are instituting a new policy to prevent unannounced drops on the day of the tournament: if a registered team does not show up to the tournament and fails to notify the tournament director at least 12 hours in advance (barring extenuating circumstances), that team may be liable for a partial fee. While we know that unexpected situations do crop up, and we will try to be understanding, teams that fail to provide adequate warning for their no-shows are being fair to neither the host nor the other teams. This policy is not meant to punish teams that overestimate interest: registered teams will not be penalized for dropping out of the field so long as this does not happen within 12 hours of the announced tournament start time (8:45 AM on 2/14).

Payment

Base fee: $90
Discount for additional teams (B team, C team, etc.): -$5 off the base fee for each additional team
Buzzer discount: -$5 per operative buzzer system with at least eight working buzzers
Moderator discount: -$5 per experienced scorekeeper or moderator
Travel discount: -$10 for teams traveling at least 200 miles one-way to New Haven
Minimum fee per school: $60

Due to some unfortunate experiences on this front, we are also announcing a new buzzer discount policy: teams which bring nonfunctional systems or systems without power cords will have their discount rescinded.

If you plan to pay by check, the check must be made out to “Y. Student Academic Competitions.” Do NOT make checks payable to “Yale Student Academic Competitions.” Checks should be given to us on the day of the tournament, or, if that's not possible, can be sent to:
Yale Student Academic Competitions
c/o Nicholas Wawrykow
P.O. box #200794
Yale University
New Haven, CT 06520

Please ignore any other addresses you may have on file.

Field (Teams/Buzzers/Team-Provided Staffers) (27/22/5 total) [updated 2/13]
High Tech (1/2/0)
Mountain Lakes (2/2/1)
Wilmington Charter (1/1/0)
Burlington (1/1/1)
Bethlehem (1/2/0)
West Egg (2/0/0)
Lexington (2/1/0)
Ridgewood (1/0/0)
St. Joseph (2/2/0)
Acton-Boxborough (1/1/0)
Cardinal Spellman (1/1/1)
North Babylon (3/3/0)
Emma Willard School (1/0/0)
St. Luke's School (1/0/0)
Frontier Regional (1/1/0)
Hunter (2/2/0)
Brookline (1/1/1)
Cheshire (2/0/0)
AMSA (1/2/1)

Waiting List

Expressed Interest

[Grace]

The field for BHSAT is now full, though spots on the waitlist remain open!

[Grace]

BHSAT has been Platinum-certified by PACE, meaning that the top 25% of our field will qualify for the NSC.

We are also expanding our field to 32 teams, so there remains 1 more spot in the field!

[Grace]

Due to a number of drops, we have 3 spots open in the field. We are now opening the field to more than three teams from any given school. I'll be sending additional tournament information to teams in about a week, so please sign up soon if you would like to do so.

[Grace]

We're less than two weeks away from the tournament, but 3 spots remain in our field.

[Halved Xenon Stinging]

Hi, the snowy weather is currently a big concern for us up here in Massachusetts. One of the players on our A team has already decided that he does not want to go due to the safety risk. Is there any word on a potential postponement?

[Grace]

We're pleased to announce that BHSAT 2015 will be going ahead tomorrow morning at the scheduled time. If all teams arrive by 8:30 AM, we should be able to start and finish the tournament early enough to get teams back on the road before conditions become difficult. (If your team feels that it would be dangerous to drive back immediately after the tournament, we can provide floor and a few couch-futon accommodations for anybody who brings a sleeping bag.) Please contact me at (240) 593-4933 if you run into any problems or if you urgently need to communicate with me.

Again, I look forward to seeing you all in WLH 119 tomorrow morning! Stay warm!

[Urech hydantoin synthesis]

Congratulations to High Tech, who defeated Bethlehem 525-215 in the first game of an advantaged final to claim the championship. Statistics will be posted later today.

[AKKOLADE]

Stats were kept for more than the first three games for each team, right?

[Grace]

Yes, and the remaining game stats are forthcoming. Sorry about the delay!

[AKKOLADE]

No worries! I just wanted to add it to my watch list if more was coming.

[Urech hydantoin synthesis]

Hey I'm sorry, I've been unable to find a good time to complete stats lately, given a particularly busy schedule and being on the heels of gastroenteritis, but they will be 100% be up by the time I go to sleep on Thursday.

[Urech hydantoin synthesis]

Stats for all games, except for forfeits (which affect the bottom two consolation brackets), are now posted at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... rfeits%29/. I will add in forfeits tomorrow.