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The Centerville Invitational will be Saturday Jan 27th, 2018. It will be the same size as the WSU one historically has (60 teams in each division) and run by the same people. Centerville High School has plenty of space, as on any given school day it has ~3,000 students and ~350 teachers all under 1 roof. I'd expect many of the same teams to participate mainly because it gives them a chance to 'size up' their competition. Like most invitationals, teams are typically expected to help run an event, although we do usually bring in various national event supervisors who live in the midwest to run events as well.

chalker wrote:The Centerville Invitational will be Saturday Jan 27th, 2018. It will be the same size as the WSU one historically has (60 teams in each division) and run by the same people. Centerville High School has plenty of space, as on any given school day it has ~3,000 students and ~350 teachers all under 1 roof. I'd expect many of the same teams to participate mainly because it gives them a chance to 'size up' their competition. Like most invitationals, teams are typically expected to help run an event, although we do usually bring in various national event supervisors who live in the midwest to run events as well.

Since there's 60 teams, I assume not everyone has to run an entire event? Would each of our school's teams just have to send a coach to help out without having to write tests?

Tesel wrote:

chalker wrote:The Centerville Invitational will be Saturday Jan 27th, 2018. It will be the same size as the WSU one historically has (60 teams in each division) and run by the same people. Centerville High School has plenty of space, as on any given school day it has ~3,000 students and ~350 teachers all under 1 roof. I'd expect many of the same teams to participate mainly because it gives them a chance to 'size up' their competition. Like most invitationals, teams are typically expected to help run an event, although we do usually bring in various national event supervisors who live in the midwest to run events as well.

Since there's 60 teams, I assume not everyone has to run an entire event? Would each of our school's teams just have to send a coach to help out without having to write tests?

Correct. Some teams will 'run' events, while other teams will 'help' with events.

@Unome, I'm curious as to why you are specifically looking at Ohio for invitationals? There are several high-quality university invites that are cropping up all over the place (now MIT, Yale, Cornell, UPenn, Princeton, Golden Gate, with I believe UChicago, Columbia, and Duke in limbo). If it's about the competition I'm sure the Tristate-area ones will attract several nationally competent teams from states like NY, PA, and NJ

idk just interesting, if you're going to travel that far why limit yourself to one location when investigating?

also doesn't georgia already have like 5 invites

kenniky wrote:@Unome, I'm curious as to why you are specifically looking at Ohio for invitationals? There are several high-quality university invites that are cropping up all over the place (now MIT, Yale, Cornell, UPenn, Princeton, Golden Gate, with I believe UChicago, Columbia, and Duke in limbo). If it's about the competition I'm sure the Tristate-area ones will attract several nationally competent teams from states like NY, PA, and NJ

idk just interesting, if you're going to travel that far why limit yourself to one location when investigating?

also doesn't georgia already have like 5 invites

I didn't say I'm only looking at Ohio invites, just that those four are the only Ohio ones on my list (though Westlake is probably not going to happen since it likely conflicts with All-State band and orchestra). Golden Gate would be an easy first choice if it was about $200 less expensive in travel costs. UPenn is on my list already. Having seen tests from Yale and Cornell, I don't consider those as good in quality as e.g. Westlake (of which I have also seen tests). Also, getting back raw scores is especially nice (as is done by Westlake and UPenn). Princeton I'm not sure about, but I'm pretty sure UPenn is higher quality and they're close together and were at similar times. Regarding the other three, I'm not really willing to trust those without significant indication that they'll be good (i.e. I'm looking at UChicago, but probably not). Regarding competition, NY/PA/NJ has nothing on Ohio invites (many of which also include Northville) - a side by side comparison is enough to show that - just at how much Mason dominated at UPenn (excepting Harriton of course).

Another important factor is the dates, since most of the tournament that you mention are after our regionals (likely February 3rd next year). It's still definitely possible, but 1) we need enough people on the team that are motivated enough to go - such people are at a premium, and 2) that leaves a pretty small amount of time to prepare for state, which we really need to be focusing on (Brookwood is very strong, plus Walton and GSMST have legitimate shots at beating us).

Georgia has four invites as of last year. Rockdale is in October, which is why we don't go; it leaves no time for new people on the team to even understand SO, and quality-wise it's not that great (only runs 16 events). Forsyth Central isn't too bad (relatively), but it has only four timeslots, a team-mixing rule that's caused a lot of misconceptions among new (and experienced) team members, and is not the greatest of experiences for someone new to SO. UGA has a normal six timeslots, but they have zero self-scheduled events (most or all events being self-scheduled is the de facto standard in Georgia). In addition UGA has so many problems that despite six timeslots Forsyth Central is easily better-run. Brookwood is a pretty high-quality tournament in most respects (though tests are on the easy side and often too short for 56 teams). However, it also has only four timeslots, as well as maxing builds (plus Game On) at ~30 teams, with the first team from each school getting priority. Hence it's not very useful for builders (who otherwise must go at UGA which maxes at 2 teams, or Forsyth Central which often doesn't run some builds).

Unome wrote: I didn't say I'm only looking at Ohio invites, just that those four are the only Ohio ones on my list (though Westlake is probably not going to happen since it likely conflicts with All-State band and orchestra). Golden Gate would be an easy first choice if it was about $200 less expensive in travel costs. UPenn is on my list already. Having seen tests from Yale and Cornell, I don't consider those as good in quality as e.g. Westlake (of which I have also seen tests). Also, getting back raw scores is especially nice (as is done by Westlake and UPenn). Princeton I'm not sure about, but I'm pretty sure UPenn is higher quality and they're close together and were at similar times. Regarding the other three, I'm not really willing to trust those without significant indication that they'll be good (i.e. I'm looking at UChicago, but probably not). Regarding competition, NY/PA/NJ has nothing on Ohio invites (many of which also include Northville) - a side by side comparison is enough to show that - just at how much Mason dominated at UPenn (excepting Harriton of course).

FYI Solon does release raw scores for events too

nicholasmaurer wrote:

Unome wrote: I didn't say I'm only looking at Ohio invites, just that those four are the only Ohio ones on my list (though Westlake is probably not going to happen since it likely conflicts with All-State band and orchestra). Golden Gate would be an easy first choice if it was about $200 less expensive in travel costs. UPenn is on my list already. Having seen tests from Yale and Cornell, I don't consider those as good in quality as e.g. Westlake (of which I have also seen tests). Also, getting back raw scores is especially nice (as is done by Westlake and UPenn). Princeton I'm not sure about, but I'm pretty sure UPenn is higher quality and they're close together and were at similar times. Regarding the other three, I'm not really willing to trust those without significant indication that they'll be good (i.e. I'm looking at UChicago, but probably not). Regarding competition, NY/PA/NJ has nothing on Ohio invites (many of which also include Northville) - a side by side comparison is enough to show that - just at how much Mason dominated at UPenn (excepting Harriton of course).

FYI Solon does release raw scores for events too

Nice to know, hadn't heard this before. However the conflict with regionals is unfortunately still there.

Wright State/Centerville is probably the best invitational in Ohio in terms of competition. My high school from Michigan is looking at going there next year (unfortunately I'm no longer in high school )