Eligibility changes for everyone:
- Students at comprehensive universities within a state university system may no longer join the clubs of other schools in the same system. Any school which offers a full course of undergraduate study must field its own team. Students at graduate-only campuses, such as medical schools not attached to a specific undergraduate school, may still play for another school in the system with the approval of the ACF Eligibility Committee.
- It is no longer permitted to play tournaments in the fall for a school you are "taking a semester off" from or "planning to attend in the spring." You must be a student in the fall, at the college you are playing for, to play in the fall. Conversely, being a student in the fall will continue to provide eligibility for the spring even if you graduate or otherwise leave school after the fall semester.
- All mixed and exhibition teams are barred from participating in ACF tournaments, even if games against them "do not count."
- It is no longer necessary to apply for permission to "switch schools" during the year. A student is either eligible to play for a school under the ACF rules, or is not, and may play for any school at which s/he is eligible at any tournament without needing to do anything else besides meet the eligibility criteria.
- The ACF Eligibility Committee reserves the right to investigate or remove someone's eligibility to play ACF or play for a particular school if the spirit of the rules, which is generally defined as "college quizbowl is for college students," is not met.
- Undergraduate and Division II eligibility will now be based strictly on time elapsed since graduating high school. An Undergraduate player must be a player who has not received a BA (or only received a first BA in the same academic year in which the tournament is taking place) and graduated high school in an academic year four years or fewer prior to the year of the tournament. Players can no longer extend Undergraduate eligibility by taking time off from college or quizbowl.
- Similarly, Division II eligibility for ACF Nationals will be for players who are Undergraduate eligible and graduated high school in an academic year two years or fewer prior to the year of the tournament. Division II eligibility for ACF Fall and ACF Regionals remains defined as before--anyone who is Undergraduate eligible and has not previously played ACF Nationals--but incorporates the new definition of Undergraduate.
- High schools are no longer permitted to play official ACF tournaments (Fall, Regionals, and Nationals). The primary reason for this is in relation to the qualification system instituted for ACF Nationals, which wishes to refocus on obtaining good data about college teams.
- ACF will make the Fall set available for mirroring as a pure high school tournament every year from 2015 forward. It is of lesser difficulty than the current high end of high school quizbowl (it is less difficult than PACE NSC or NAQT HSNCT, for example) and is an appropriate set for moderately experienced high school teams to play in a high school setting. We believe this will be a better use of the questions as far as high schools are concerned.
- ACF encourages independent college tournaments using the ACF rules for tournaments of regular college difficulty to allow high schools in those events under reasonable eligibility criteria similar to those used for high school tournaments.
- High school students who are also college students may continue to play for a college team if they meet the eligibility criteria.
- Like the other rule changes, this does not take effect until 2015-2016. High schools wishing to play 2015 ACF Nationals may do so, subject to the same qualification requirements as other teams.