The Quizbowl Resource Center

The Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament will once again be available to run in Spring 2015. Questions will be written by head editor Rob Carson, Mike Cheyne, Shan Kothari, Andrew Hart, Cody Voight, Bernadette Spencer, and special guest Gautam Kandlikar.

Eligibility: Only undergraduate and high school students can play this tournament. If you are a grad student, you may not play. To clarify a minor issue from last year, "undergraduate" in this case does not follow the traditional ACF definition--fifth-year (or greater) undergraduates with no bachelor's-level degree are still eligible to play.

Difficulty: Ideally, MUT 2015 will look a lot like MUT 2014, which I think did a good job hitting my difficulty goals. The tournament should sit at a level harder than ACF Fall, especially in the early clues and hard bonus parts, but on the easier side of "regular difficulty".

Distribution:
4/4 Literature (1/1 each American, British, European, and world/ancient/other)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 Euro, 1/1 world, 1/1 British/ancient/more Euro)
4/4 Science (1/1 each biology, chemistry, physics, and other)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 each painting and music, 1 other auditory, 1 other visual)
2/2 Religion/Mythology (1/1 each)
1/1 Philosophy/Geography (11/10 or 10/11 philosophy and 3/4 or 4/3 geography questions over 14 packets)
1/1 Social Science
1/1 Pop Culture/Other

Mirrors: We would like to see this set mirrored across the country (or indeed across the WORLD) from the weekend of March 14th into May. Please contact me at [email protected] if you'd like to mirror this set and, if possible, put "MUT mirror" somewhere in the subject line. The mirror fee will be $35/non-house team.

Mirror list:
Northwest: 

Southwest:
South: Louisiana-Lafayette (04.11.15)
Great Lakes: 
Rochester (tentative; date TBA)
North Midwest: Minnesota (date TBA)
South Midwest: Kansas State (date TBA)
New England/Northeast: MIT (05.02.15)
Mid-Atlantic: VCU (04.04.15)
Southeast: WKU (date TBA)
Florida: UCF (04.11.15)
Canada: McMaster/Waterloo (03.22.15)
California: Berkeley (05.02.15)
Other: Georgia NASAT tryouts, TI

Please feel free to post here or send me an email if you have any further questions.

First update to the mirror list. Get your bids in quick!

EDIT: Note that the "regions" listed up there aren't necessarily a one-per thing--while large tournaments with diverse fields are the goal, I'm certainly open to a multiple-smaller-tournament model when that would work better for the area in question.

I hope that's the case, because driving to Penn State for a mirror sounds like a nightmare.

I second that. I was looking forward to playing this if there was a mirror anywhere in New England.

Hold your horses, people. There are only a handful of people in the history of quizbowl that would think a Northeast mirror solely at Penn State is a good idea.

Rob is not one of them, ergo there will be a northeast site added if anyone bothers to bid.

Does the Penn State mirror have a date yet?

Ndg wrote:Does the Penn State mirror have a date yet?

Not sure; I'll follow up with them.

I'll also have some more mirror info added to the OP shortly--there are plenty of regions left open though, so please contact me if you're interested in hosting!

The Canada mirror will now be at the University of Waterloo on the 22nd of March, as announced here: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16908.

Ukonvasara wrote:

Ndg wrote:Does the Penn State mirror have a date yet?

Not sure; I'll follow up with them.

I'll also have some more mirror info added to the OP shortly--there are plenty of regions left open though, so please contact me if you're interested in hosting!

Any news on this? Also is there a possibility of another Northeast host? Penn State is quite a distance for most teams in the Northeast

Off To See The Lizard wrote:

Ukonvasara wrote:

Ndg wrote:Does the Penn State mirror have a date yet?

Not sure; I'll follow up with them.

I'll also have some more mirror info added to the OP shortly--there are plenty of regions left open though, so please contact me if you're interested in hosting!

Any news on this? Also is there a possibility of another Northeast host? Penn State is quite a distance for most teams in the Northeast

I suppose now is as good a time to post about this as any: Rutgers is interested in hosting a MUT mirror this year, provided that the editors don't consider us to be too close to Penn State.

Not to be too self-centered, but Rutgers is a pretty bad geographic location in terms of attracting New England teams. It'd be cool to get off the rotation of just having Brown/Yale/MIT/Harvard host, but Rutgers just doesn't seem like a great alternative unless you're in New York or Connecticut.

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:Not to be too self-centered, but Rutgers is a pretty bad geographic location in terms of attracting New England teams. It'd be cool to get off the rotation of just having Brown/Yale/MIT/Harvard host, but Rutgers just doesn't seem like a great alternative unless you're in New York or Connecticut.

Eh, it's good for New Jersey (which often gets squeezed by MA/VA hosting splits), eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and Connecticut, and reachable by car from further north. Nothing stops hosts further northeast from hosting a site of their own as well; MUT is a popular enough event that another even more New England-y site could still hold together on top of this one. But let's not go torpedoing mirrors that a lot of teams find convenient just because it's marginally harder for your team to reach them.

That's entirely fair; my comment's more addressed towards the idea that Rutgers would be a good "New England" site. It seems perfectly reasonable as a mid-Atlantic one, since it's plenty far from the other mid-Atlantic one at VCU, which would presumably be the go-to for teams like UNC, UMD, and Duke.

So what is the consensus on Penn State as the Mid-Atlantic mirror? Sorry for the tardiness but we are still interested in hosting if there are enough teams interested in attending.

User was reminded to enable a signature. --Mgmt.

fendersg11 wrote:So what is the consensus on Penn State as the Mid-Atlantic mirror? Sorry for the tardiness but we are still interested in hosting if there are enough teams interested in attending.

CMU -- and likely many other teams -- would be interested, but (for the third time) actually proposing a date would be helpful.

fendersg11 wrote:So what is the consensus on Penn State as the Mid-Atlantic mirror? Sorry for the tardiness but we are still interested in hosting if there are enough teams interested in attending.

VCU has already been given a mirror, announced it, accepted several registrations, and sent e-mails to 60 schools inviting them.

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... =8&t=16961

Does Minnesota know when their site will be running yet?

Not yet; I'm waiting to hear back from the club. I will both post here and email teams in our prospective audience (yourself included!) as soon as I do.

Is there any chance of another Midwest mirror happening? Going all the way to Minnesota to play this is obviously not ideal.

the charm wrote:Is there any chance of another Midwest mirror happening? Going all the way to Minnesota to play this is obviously not ideal.

It looks like Kansas State. Not sure if that is much better for you all though

the charm wrote:Is there any chance of another Midwest mirror happening? Going all the way to Minnesota to play this is obviously not ideal.

I will consider it, but I'd like to (a) draw a decent field to the home site and (b) get some sort of reciprocation for Minnesota regularly driving down to the Chicago area to play tournaments.

Is there any news on the Rochester site?

Please host @ Rutgers!

Coldblueberry wrote:Please host @ Rutgers!

We'd certainly like to, but we're still awaiting confirmation from Rob on whether it's okay for us to host.

Dead Parrot wrote:

Coldblueberry wrote:Please host @ Rutgers!

We'd certainly like to, but we're still awaiting confirmation from Rob on whether it's okay for us to host.

Northern Illinois is in the same boat.

TheDoctor wrote:

Dead Parrot wrote:

Coldblueberry wrote:Please host @ Rutgers!

We'd certainly like to, but we're still awaiting confirmation from Rob on whether it's okay for us to host.

Northern Illinois is in the same boat.

Any word on whether this (or any other Great Lakes/online mirror) is happening?

Cape Fear wrote:

TheDoctor wrote:

Dead Parrot wrote:

Coldblueberry wrote:Please host @ Rutgers!

We'd certainly like to, but we're still awaiting confirmation from Rob on whether it's okay for us to host.

Northern Illinois is in the same boat.

Any word on whether this (or any other Great Lakes/online mirror) is happening?

Rob got back to us yesterday, and NIU's site has been denied.

Dead Parrot wrote:

Coldblueberry wrote:Please host @ Rutgers!

We'd certainly like to, but we're still awaiting confirmation from Rob on whether it's okay for us to host.

In case people haven't seen, there is now a Rutgers mirror (and UCSD). If some of you feel like complaining, read MJ's post. (cue rant about distance-averseness of East Coast teams)

Is Rochester happening?

Considering that most of the teams that would have gone went to the Waterloo mirror, I doubt it.

Is this set now clear?

Matthew J wrote:Is this set now clear?

As far as I know. I or someone else will make the discussion public and get the set posted within a few days.

Packet set is now posted at http://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/1693/.