NAQT Collegiate Novice at Carnegie Mellon, 9/17

[Silverman]

Carnegie Mellon University will be hosting a mirror of IS-158C, NAQT's collegiate novice tournament, on September 17. The tournament will take place in Porter Hall, and teams should arrive by 9:30 AM. The field has a tentative cap of 8 teams for now. (EDIT: the field now has a hard cap of 14 teams and is full.)

Fees:

$15 per player
-$5/team per buzzer system (max of 2)
-$10/team per moderator
-$10/team if your school did not attend any tournaments in the 2015/16 year
Minimum fee: $40 per team

Registration:
Please email me at ssilverm [at] cmu [dot] edu with the number of teams, number of players on each team, and any discounts you plan to claim. All checks should be made out to "Carnegie Mellon University".

Eligibility:
No player who has previously played a regular difficulty collegiate tournament (including HS-only mirrors of such) is eligible for this tournament. Further eligibility decisions are at the discretion of the tournament director.

Field:
Carnegie Mellon (3)
Case Western (2)
Kenyon (2)
Ohio State (2)
Penn State (2)
Pitt (3)

[Silverman]

Congratulations to Penn State, who won the tournament with a 10-0 record. Thanks again to everyone for coming to Pittsburgh to play!

Stats are at www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/3860.

[a bird]

I think this this tournament went quite well, and the Kenyon teams had a good time. Thanks to CMU for hosting!

One reflection on the tournament: I think future novice events might want to take a closer look at eligibility restrictions. I don't want to single out any particular clubs or players, but there were some very strong high school players in the field. I think novice events like this can do a lot for the health of the circuit, but I think including players with a very strong background from high school might not serve their main goals.

[thegoodsheppard]

Once again CMU ran again a great tournament. The Pitt players learned a good deal about quizbowl.

I would agree we do need to try to return this to a true novice tournament. I believe the best way is to submit player names for the tournament before the tournament begins.

Thanks CMU for hosting this.

[Silverman]

Those are fair concerns. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on what a more codified "novice eligibility" would look like. Points per game at HSNCT/NSC cutoff? Having played college tournaments of a certain difficulty? Having played a certain number of high school tournaments?

I suppose these requirements could change site to site, but it might be nice to have them centralized somehow.

[Beevor Feevor]

Those are fair concerns. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on what a more codified "novice eligibility" would look like. Points per game at HSNCT/NSC cutoff? Having played college tournaments of a certain difficulty? Having played a certain number of high school tournaments?

I suppose these requirements could change site to site, but it might be nice to have them centralized somehow.

For the UVa mirror of Collegiate Novice this year, I unofficially used the VCU Novice eligibility rules from last year, which are adjusted ones from the EACN tournaments that Andrew Hart used to run.

1.All ACF eligibility rules apply, except when they contradict the rules below.
2.This is a tournament for introducing collegiate novices to quizbowl. Consequently, no high school teams or players are eligible.
3. Anyone (who does not break Rules 1 or 2) who has never played quizbowl before is automatically eligible. Other academic competition does not count as quizbowl for this rule.
4. Players meeting one or more of the following criteria must apply to the head editor for special permission to play:
If you have already completed your second year of college (calculated from time in college, not credits). Time in a post-secondary high school program does not count.
(i) If you have ever finished in the top 20 in scoring at PACE NSC or top 35 in scoring at NAQT HSNCT, or played on a team that finished in the top 16 at NSC or t-21 at HSNCT.
(ii) If you ever lead a team in scoring that made it beyond the first round of the HSNCT playoffs, or lead a team in scoring that made the top playoff bracket of NSC [the last two years, this has been the top 24 teams].
(iii) If you have ever scored at least 30 points per game at any college tournament.
(iv) If you have ever won any college tournament.
5. Anyone who does not fall into any of the four categories listed in Rule 4 is automatically eligible to play.

[Important Bird Area]

Those are fair concerns. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on what a more codified "novice eligibility" would look like. Points per game at HSNCT/NSC cutoff? Having played college tournaments of a certain difficulty? Having played a certain number of high school tournaments?

I suppose these requirements could change site to site, but it might be nice to have them centralized somehow.

For the record, NAQT defers to the tournament hosts re: eligibility criteria for these collegiate novice events. (That is: we don't want to write a single set of nationwide eligibility rules, then find out that it reduced the tournament size to three teams in some part of the country.)

[Cheynem]

I think NAQT should probably centralize at least bare minimum eligibility standards. They can use the rule of "exemptions may be granted" as well. I think if tournaments that cannot prevent experienced players from playing at the risk of only having 3 teams should simply use another question set.