The Quizbowl Resource Center

NAQT is pleased to announce the hosts of its 2014 Sectional Championship Tournaments.

Canada: Ottawa
New England: MIT
East: RPI
Mid-Atlantic: Virginia Tech
Great Lakes: Case Western This site will take place Sunday, February 9.
Mideast: Kentucky This site will take place Sunday, February 9.
Southeast: Florida
Midwest: Chicago
North: Minnesota
Central: Truman State
South: Rice
Southwest: Arizona State This site will take place Sunday, February 9.
West: Berkeley
Northwest: Washington

Contact information for each site is available on naqt.com.

Last updated 1/5--JTH

Added some midwestern sites.

There's no reason that this site should not be on your list, right? Joel posted the below about a week ago.

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =8&t=15131

I didn't list it yet because it doesn't have a confirmed location (all we know is "Joel and the TQBA will be hosting it in the Houston area").

I will let you know when that is settled, if Joel doesn't beat me to it.

Any chance we could get fee structures posted? I have to pre-encumber for tournament fees before semester's end.

What measures will be taken this year to account for strength differences per site and how bids will reflect them?

Tale of Mac Datho's Pachycephalosaur wrote:Any chance we could get fee structures posted? I have to pre-encumber for tournament fees before semester's end.

The fee structure is here. Contact the host in your region if you have questions about possible site-specific changes (such as distance discounts).

Is there any news on the not yet announced sites (particularly Great Lakes); we need to submit our funding requests for next semester soon.

Pending room reservations, Kentucky will host a SCT on the Saturday.

Grams's Go-Go Boots wrote:Pending room reservations, Kentucky will host a SCT on the Saturday.

Just to note, this will officially happen, but it will be on Sunday, February 9 as noted above.

merv1618 wrote:What measures will be taken this year to account for strength differences per site and how bids will reflect them?

Quoting this in hopes of answer.

Also, when will registration open?

Soon. Ideally we would like to have 2-3 more sites announced before opening registration (just to limit the amount of "oh, now there's a site much closer to our school" anarchy in the registration system).

Grams's Go-Go Boots wrote:

merv1618 wrote:What measures will be taken this year to account for strength differences per site and how bids will reflect them?

Quoting this in hopes of answer.

We haven't finalized any of this, but we expect no major changes to the existing D-value system.

Minnesota will be hosting the North SCT.

Case Western will host the Great Lakes SCT on Sunday, February 9th.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but wouldn't it make more geographical sense to have RPI be the "New England" site and to add an "East" site in the DC-to-NYC area?

We considered that option, but rejected it on the grounds that a DC-metro site would remove essentially all of the Division I field from the Virginia Tech site.

I hope that we will be able to announce a New England SCT site in the near future.

Any update on when registration would open?

The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi wrote:Any update on when registration would open?

If you try to register for one of the SCT sites, the website states that registration will open on January 1st.

Hilariously, my attempt to pull open the registration for the Ottawa site led to it telling me I could not register until Canada Day.

Washington will host the Northwest SCT.

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Hilariously, my attempt to pull open the registration for the Ottawa site led to it telling me I could not register until Canada Day.

Well, that's July 1st, so we should probably allow entry before then.

It's a long way from Virginia, but you are more than welcome (maybe you'll run into Rob Ford along the way! Or more realistically, enjoy open-air ice skating on Ottawa's famous Rideau Canal).

Registration is now open.

Will there be a New England site?

Yes; we're working on the details and expect an announcement in the near future.

vinteuil wrote:Will there be a New England site?

MIT will host the New England SCT.

bt_green_warbler wrote:

vinteuil wrote:Will there be a New England site?

MIT will host the New England SCT.

Just to confirm, my understanding is that while the physical site would be MIT, Harvard and MIT would be co-hosting and we would therefore each receive 1 autobid to ICT. Is this correct? If not, Harvard would obviously have to opt to field our usual A team as a DI team and that would seriously hurt our ability to co-host.

Automatic bids for the New England SCT are yet to be determined (in general, such bids call for the school to provide at least four experienced tournament staff).

Currently, 14 sites are scheduled with a possible 15th to be added. What happens if you have more autobid winners in a division than you have bids to award? (This is certainly possible in D1 if you have 15 overall winners, however many undergrad winners who aren't overall winners, and whatever number of hosts choose to take their autobid in D1.)

If that happens, we'll expand the ICT field. (I don't expect that it will; in general, having more medium-sized SCT sites reduces the chance of distinct Undergraduate champions.)

Another Mid-Atlantic site?!

But you wouldn't go to the seemingly widely-supported 36 team field even if there are literally zero wildcards?

After what happened last year, I don't see any disadvantage for anyone - NAQT gets more money, more teams get to play, and it's less likely that decent teams are left out. At the rate things are going, this year seems likely to have at least as many problems with a lack of wild card bids as last year.

Madagascar Serpent Eagle wrote:But you wouldn't go to the seemingly widely-supported 36 team field even if there are literally zero wildcards?

After what happened last year, I don't see any disadvantage for anyone

The disadvantages of the 36-team schedule are "writing more packets" and "extending the tournament later into the evening." We're willing to consider that, but we will need to see the strength of demand for the 2014 ICT before we commit.

The set of 14 SCT sites is now complete.

This is a reminder about question security: please do not publicly discuss questions from the 2014 NAQT SCT. We have three SCT sites on Sunday this year, as well as NAQT's Community College Championship Tournament at the end of February, and a number of high school events later in the spring.

For question-specific discussion, please select the private forum marked "SCT 2014 discussion" from your user control panel. I'll approve requests starting tomorrow night once Saturday's sites conclude play.