Anyone medaled at Nats?

[49ers]

see what I mean, PA has been A bad sitcom for years now with the same 2 teams going to nats every year!! but the third place is normally a tight competition

The last two years, PA has sent different teams to Nationals from B division... Two years ago was Sewickley and BC, this year was Sewickley and Shady Side. Besides that which - it's not a bad sitcom, and it's not like it's unfair to the teams that don't make it - the teams they get to go don't have some magic secret, they just work harder and do well at States.

OT, yes, I have. woohoo! Being on stage to receive an award at nationals is a really awesome feeling.

but see, sewicley has made it to nats 2 years in a row

[Deeisenberg]

see what I mean, PA has been A bad sitcom for years now with the same 2 teams going to nats every year!! but the third place is normally a tight competition

The last two years, PA has sent different teams to Nationals from B division... Two years ago was Sewickley and BC, this year was Sewickley and Shady Side. Besides that which - it's not a bad sitcom, and it's not like it's unfair to the teams that don't make it - the teams they get to go don't have some magic secret, they just work harder and do well at States.

OT, yes, I have. woohoo! Being on stage to receive an award at nationals is a really awesome feeling.

but see, sewicley has made it to nats 2 years in a row

It's not realistic to expect that different teams will make it to nationals every year. Sewickley clearly consistently works very hard, and as such, they have made it to nationals multiple years in a row. It isn't unfair.

[scienceolympiadist]

Ohio deserves to send 3 teams to Nationals. they are by far the most successful state in the Nation. even their 3rd place teams this year at States, Solon High School and Magsig Middle School, could have finished top 10 at Nationals easily.

[49ers]

why does everyone talk about OHIO beinfg the best state!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is not better than PA or NY, if iuts is even equal with them its a miracle
And I astill believe 3 teams from EVERY STATE SHOULD GOOOOOOO!!!!!

[manutd94]

It's not realistic to expect that different teams will make it to nationals every year. Sewickley clearly consistently works very hard, and as such, they have made it to nationals multiple years in a row. It isn't unfair.[/quote]

I agree Davie!

[49ers]

why isnt it realistic to expect different teams to get to nats!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe my team will make it to nats this next year

[Deeisenberg]

why isnt it realistic to expect different teams to get to nats!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe my team will make it to nats this next year

I'm not saying that it's unreal to think other teams will go, it is just unrealistic to expect that there won't be certain teams that go to nationals very often. They do so because they have science olympiad teams that consistently work hard. I am not saying that new teams can't make it, or that teams that have made it can't completely fall out of the real competition. If your team does work harder than either all, or all but one team in the state of Pennsylvania, you will probably wake it to nationals. If you don't, you probably won't. That is the way it works. That being said, I wish you the best of luck.

why does everyone talk about OHIO beinfg the best state!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is not better than PA or NY, if iuts is even equal with them its a miracle
And I astill believe 3 teams from EVERY STATE SHOULD GOOOOOOO!!!!!

Ohio is, at least for B division, consistently one of if not the best states in the nations. This is said by people, because it is demonstrated by the evidence. Ohio teams in B division consistently get 2 of the top 5 places at nationals, if they weren't one of if not the best state, then they wouldn't be able to do that.

Also sending 3 teams per state to nationals is impractical, and not a great idea. As is not every state sends a team at all, and most states only send one. For one thing it would not be a good or fair idea to give every state the same number of teams, because that means that you are giving unfair advantage to smaller states, or any states in which olympiad teams are low in number. It doesn't make sense to send 3 teams from Hawaii, and 3 teams from Michigan when Michigan has something like ten times as many teams. It doesn't make sense to send 3 teams from Oklahoma to nationals for each division, because that would mean that 75% of their teams would go.

The other reason why that is impractical is because it costs money to run nationals. Science olympiad is a non profit organization, and their funding is far from unlimited. If you had 150 teams in each division as you propose, the costs of running the competition would greatly increase, as would it's complexity. To test so many teams in so man events is incredibly difficult.

Ohio deserves to send 3 teams to Nationals. they are by far the most successful state in the Nation. even their 3rd place teams this year at States, Solon High School and Magsig Middle School, could have finished top 10 at Nationals easily.

I don't disagree, but Ohio is not the only state where a third team could possibly make top 10 at Nationals. Honestly I would say that Solon probably would have actually beaten Mentor at nationals, they really had a bad day at states. As for B division, I don't claim to know. There are other states that really could probably do the same though. The third and fourth place teams from Pennsylvania C this past year were good enough in comparison to Harriton and Penn Crest that I would not be at all suprised if they would have made the top 10 if they had gone.

Also I don't think that we should necessarily award more team to states based on merit, I think we should stay with the same method of allocating teams by number of teams. I mean without trial and error which I think would be pretty unfair, at least in the short term, how would you determine merit based team allocation? Though I do think that the strict 2 teams per state should be eliminated in one way. I think that, at least South California, if not North California as well, should get an additional team. This is because for Scioly purposes, it is already split into 2 states, and California has by far the largest population in the nation, as well as number of science olympiad teams (if you include North and South, it far surpasses any other state).

[fmtiger124]

why isnt it realistic to expect different teams to get to nats!!!!!!!!!!!
I believe my team will make it to nats this next year

I'm not saying that it's unreal to think other teams will go, it is just unrealistic to expect that there won't be certain teams that go to nationals very often. They do so because they have science olympiad teams that consistently work hard. I am not saying that new teams can't make it, or that teams that have made it can't completely fall out of the real competition. If your team does work harder than either all, or all but one team in the state of Pennsylvania, you will probably wake it to nationals. If you don't, you probably won't. That is the way it works. That being said, I wish you the best of luck.

agreed...the schools that consistantly go are able to survive graduation, work hard and have kids that are willing to possibly spend a lot of their lives on SO. They alos benefit often times from school districts that are willing to support the SO program with money, teachers and after school periods for them to work during (i think some schools don't have after school)

[scienceolympiadist]

so it's like how the Senate works; not quite exactly, but more like it

and 49er...please know your facts before you make your claims. here are the stats for ohio teams within the past 2 years:

2008 div c- centerville HS- 3rd Nationals
2008 div c- solon HS- 2nd nationals
2008 div b- magsig MS- 3rd nationals
2008 div b- solon MS- 1st nationals

2009 div c- centerville HS- 1st nationals
2009 div b- solon MS- 1st nationals

now do you still want to make the claim that Ohio isn't better than any other state? PA and NY, etc also send top-notch schools, but Ohio by far has dominated the victories in recent years

[nejanimb]

Ohio deserves to send 3 teams to Nationals. they are by far the most successful state in the Nation. even their 3rd place teams this year at States, Solon High School and Magsig Middle School, could have finished top 10 at Nationals easily.

I don't disagree, but Ohio is not the only state where a third team could possibly make top 10 at Nationals. Honestly I would say that Solon probably would have actually beaten Mentor at nationals, they really had a bad day at states. As for B division, I don't claim to know. There are other states that really could probably do the same though. The third and fourth place teams from Pennsylvania C this past year were good enough in comparison to Harriton and Penn Crest that I would not be at all suprised if they would have made the top 10 if they had gone.

Also I don't think that we should necessarily award more team to states based on merit, I think we should stay with the same method of allocating teams by number of teams. I mean without trial and error which I think would be pretty unfair, at least in the short term, how would you determine merit based team allocation? Though I do think that the strict 2 teams per state should be eliminated in one way. I think that, at least South California, if not North California as well, should get an additional team. This is because for Scioly purposes, it is already split into 2 states, and California has by far the largest population in the nation, as well as number of science olympiad teams (if you include North and South, it far surpasses any other state).

To my way of thinking, there's definitely two sides to this. Going strictly by # of teams makes sense in that it isn't at all "presumptuous", and works under the reasonable assumption that any team anywhere in the country is able to be good, so it should be proportioned by population.

However, that assumption is clearly false. Everyone knows that, it just is fair to operate that way. However... in some obvious cases, merit allocation seems like it makes sense. While the excuse of "Our state only gets to send one and no one will EVER be able to beat that team so it's not fair we can't go!!!" like Colorado or SoCal I don't think I buy as much (since, no team is unbeatable, and the team that does go... they earn it!), I do understand the problem of "well if we sent 3 teams they'd do better than most other teams anywhere anyways!"

One way of doing this somewhat objectively is to say "If the base # of teams from any given state make top 10, that state gets a bonus team for the next year." It could be even top 5, if we wanted to be even more picky. From this year, this would mean that each OH, CA, and PA would get to bring a 3rd team next year (C division). As it turned out, none of the top 10 C division teams this year came from a state with only 1 team, but, under this policy, if they had, their state would earn a second berth for next year as well. Then, next year, the states that got to bring a bonus team would have to maintain their performance - that is, 2 teams from each OH, PA, and CA would have to make top 10. If that did not happen, they would go back to only getting 2 spots. For B division, this would mean that next year, WA and NJ got to bring 2 teams, and CA and MI got to bring 3 teams.

I... am not sure about this. But it'd be one somewhat fair, objective way to do it. What do other people think? Good idea? One definite problem with this is that having the top team (or top 2 teams) is not necessarily indicative of how well the bonus team would do...

And yeah. If we were doing merit, it's pretty clear that Ohio should get a third team.