(note: i know nothing about the composition of most teams, i'm only able to base this off of previous history. notably, LISO was an SAT date, and I know many teams couldn't bring their best because of it)
1. Columbia - It just seems so hard to put them any lower than this considering their sub-100 score last year at states. It's hard to drop off that much.
2. Ward Melville - Looking at LISO, there were a few tanking events, but I don't think a lot of it is a real concern (ex: a leaky boi was probably why their PPP messed up, other builds are fixable, ExDes was
, etc). Besides that, I think their scores were extremely strong (especially if we look at superscore -- Ward B was great as well), and I don't see any reason why they're not up here.3. FM - Yes, they were below Kellenberg and Syosset at Cornell, who I have lower on this list. But they also had two HUGE bombs, and overall, they were solid otherwise. I'm giving the edge to them over Stuy simply because of history. FM always rapidly improves from its invitationals, I would totally expect them to figure out their bombs, and if this is their starting point, they're going to be hard to beat. I think Ward's LISO performance was better though, so I have to give it to them first.
4. Stuyvesant - Strong LISO performance from both teams, pretty consistent placings, although as per usual, build events drop their score some. They're not higher than Ward or FM, but I know Stuy was missing people from the SAT, and I think they have a real chance of cracking the dominant 3 if they keep it up.
5. Kellenberg - Did great at Cornell, was very close to winning the whole thing! Good at LISO too, though they weren't very close to Ward or Stuy. They're for sure going to be fun to watch this year -- hope they can keep it up.
6. Syosset - They had the same score without drops as Kellenberg at LISO, and slightly higher at Cornell. They had several uncharacteristically average study events along with their haunting build/WIDI problems, but being Syosset, I'm sure they will figure it out. For now, they go here.
7. Mount Academy - No data yet (we'll have to wait until Columbia), but I see them as high as 5 and as low as 9 on this list, so I put them right in the middle. Mount and the two schools below are real dark horses.
8. Staten Island Tech - These folks are sneakily good; superscored, they were right there with Syosset and above Kellenberg at LISO. Their builds, as usual, are quite strong (on the B team at least). They have a couple of other bad events they need to figure out though before they can pass Kellenberg and Syosset.
9. Great Neck South - Again, these guys were there with Syosset and better than Kellenberg by superscore. Considering their history, I'm probably highly underrating them, and I wouldn't be surprised if they came out on the top of this 5-9 pack (if they can figure out their bad events).
10. Brooklyn Tech - were kind of unstacked for LISO, stacked they look pretty decent. Affected by the SATs. I want to see this as a NYC homer.
notable: Spackenkill - was very solid at Cornell, and I realistically see them 11th, if not, definitely 10th.
other notables: Scarsdale, Pittsford Sutherland (i don't know anything about these regions and they have no data so I can't say anything)
Let me know what you think of these predictions (if you can't tell, my last predictions were a troll). I think NYS is going to be a really tough competition this year.
This next month will be very interesting. Can't wait to see MIT, which many top NY teams are attending. I think we'll know for sure where the top four is at after that.
Good luck to those attending Columbia this weekend -- we'll finally be able to see their team this year
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