Second Annual HSAPQ National All-Star Academic Tournament

High School Academic Pyramid Questions announces that it will be holding the second HSAPQ National All-Star Academic Tournament on June 11-12, 2011 at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland. The tournament will convene at 8:30 AM on Saturday, June 11 and run until about 6 PM, then conclude from 8:30 AM to about 3:00 PM on Sunday. We will announce details as soon as possible regarding the specific buildings on the Maryland campus that will be used.

This tournament will be open to all-star teams representing all states, the District of Columbia, all US territories, and all Canadian provinces and equivalents (as well as state or province-equivalent divisions of any other countries). Each state or equivalent may enter up to one team, with up to six players on its roster, up to four of whom may be playing at any one time. Any player who was enrolled in the 9th through 12th grade in a school physically located in that state during the 2010-2011 academic year is eligible to play on his or her state's team. Generally speaking, home school students are also eligible; any questions about eligibility will be answered by HSAPQ as needed. This tournament is intended for states seeking an all-star event. We encourage single-school teams looking for national championships to investigate two such championships run by groups that are unaffiliated with HSAPQ: the National Scholastics Championship run by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (http://pace-nsc.org/) and the High School National Championship Tournament run by National Academic Quiz Tournaments (http://naqt.com/hsnct/2011/details.html).

We will continue to keep cost under control; in line with that, the tournament will not be held at a resort, but rather on a college campus, much like many other high school quizbowl events held throughout the year. Furthermore, we will use a normal format comparable to regular-season events: games will consist of twenty tossups, with a thirty-point bonus being played after each correct tossup answer. Teams will play head-to-head, two at a time. 'Performance-based', multimedia, calculation, and pop culture questions will not be used. Teams will play twelve to sixteen games, in line with other national championship events, over the two days of the tournament. Because this event will be played by highly skilled all-star teams, the question difficulty will be higher than that used at existing national championships such as the NSC and HSNCT. The style and subject distribution of the questions will be quite similar to existing HSAPQ sets. The entry fee is $525 per team with a $20 discount for bringing up to one buzzer system per team. HSAPQ will be issuing suggestions on nearby hotels, transportation and dining options, and so on, but will be neither providing nor selling such accommodations ourselves, with the exception of a possible Friday night event. Teams travelling by air are advised that BWI airport is the most convenient to the campus, but flights to Dulles and Reagan National may also prove to be good travel solutions.

We are seeking to gauge interest in a social mixer and casual dinner to be held on Friday evening before the tournament on the Maryland campus. Should there be sufficient interest, we will organize this and charge a reasonable per-head fee to cover costs. Participation will be optional.

All teams must submit an application to HSAPQ for entry into the tournament. In the vast majority of these cases, applications will be accepted outright. However, if more than one contingent from a state seeks to enter this tournament, HSAPQ will evaluate applications from each potential team and determine who may represent their state at the National All-Star Academic Tournament. The only criterion that will be used in this decision is our assessment, based on a review of the players' achievements in the 2010-11 competition year, of which team is likely to perform the best at the tournament. Therefore, GPA, test scores, and non-academic extracurricular activities should not be included on any application; other academic extracurricular activities (e.g. Science Bowl) should only be included if there were limited opportunities for teams in the state to compete at quizbowl. HSAPQ plans to make contact with a regional network of advisors who will consult with HSAPQ on these decisions.

HSAPQ will once again use a rolling application procedure: teams who submit applications to HSAPQ on or before April 4 will be notified of HSAPQ's decision no later than April 11. We may also approve an application submitted from January 27 onwards as soon as "immediately" if we find it unlikely that a stronger team from the state could be assembled. Teams who submit applications to HSAPQ between April 5 and June 1, inclusive, will be notified no later than one week after the application is received. Once a team from a state or state-equivalent has been approved by HSAPQ, HSAPQ will no longer accept alternate applications from that state, but will accept roster changes made by the official team contact (in most cases, the individual that submitted the application). Applications, or questions about the application process, should be sent to Dwight Wynne at dpwynne@gmail.com.

We welcome any comments or questions regarding the National All-Star Academic Tournament or other HSAPQ ventures. Please direct your messages to HSAPQ Communications Officer Eric Douglass at ericd25@hotmail.com.