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Hi everyone! I'm excited to announce on Scioly that Solon High School Science Olympiad will be hosting its 25th annual invitational tournament on February 2, 2019. Our tournament last year was the second largest in the country, with 66 teams representing 39 schools from six states. Here are a few facts about our upcoming tournament:

• We will register 66-72 teams
  Raw scores for all events will be released (in addition to rankings/placings)
  National and state event supervisors are expected to run several of our events
  Medals or ribbons will be awarded through eighth place for each event
  Trophies will be presented to the top eight schools
  Several trial events for competitors and alternates will be run

If your school has not attended in the past, but would like to consider attending this year, please feel free to send me a PM. I'm happy to answer questions and help make a trip possible. Registration is open and available here.

Here is a list of who has registered to attend thus far, separated by Ohio vs. out-of-state:

• Avon Lake HS (OH)
  Archbishop Hoban HS (OH)
  Aurora HS (OH)
  Beachwood HS (OH)
  Bio-Med Science Academy (OH)
  Brecksville Broadview Heights HS (OH)
  Brush HS (OH)
  Chagrin Falls HS (OH)
  Chardon HS (OH)
  Columbus Academy (OH)
  Horizon Science Academy (OH)
  Hudson HS (OH)
  Kenston HS (OH)
  Mason HS (OH)
  Mayfield HS (OH)
  Medina HS (OH)
  Mentor HS (OH)
  Monroe Central HS (OH)
  Nordonia HS (OH)
  Notre Dame Cathedral Latin (OH)
  Olentangy Liberty HS (OH)
  Revere HS (OH)
  Rocky River HS (OH)
  Shaker Heights HS (OH)
  Stow-Munroe Falls HS (OH)
  St. Edward HS (OH)
  St. Ignatius HS (OH)
  St. Xavier HS (OH)
  Thomas Worthington HS (OH)
  Westlake HS (OH)
  Worthington Kilbourne HS (OH)

• Adlai E. Stevenson HS (IL)
  New Trier HS (IL)
  duPont Manual HS (KY)
  International Academy - Central (MI)
  Northville HS (MI)
  Bayard Rustin HS (PA)
  Seneca HS (PA)
  Shady Side Academy (PA)
  Boyceville HS (WI)

This list is current as of 12/4/18 and will be updated periodically.

nicholasmaurer wrote:Our tournament last year was the second largest in the country

brookwood is sad

Unome wrote:

nicholasmaurer wrote:Our tournament last year was the second largest in the country

brookwood is sad

Don't worry we are trying to expand again this year

We are rapidly approaching our registration cap: we are currently at 66 teams and will stop accepting new registrations once we reach 72. Register soon if you are interested!

Our invitational is now at its capacity of 72 teams. We are still accepting waitlist registrations. The list of participating schools above will continue to be updated if changes are made.

I don't understand the belief the a huge tounament is a better tournament. When you get that big the tests suffer as you have to trade variety of styles for quickness in grading. Not a fan....

rfscoach wrote:I don't understand the belief the a huge tounament is a better tournament. When you get that big the tests suffer as you have to trade variety of styles for quickness in grading. Not a fan....

Keep in mind though, that "quickness in grading" is often required for tests at states and nationals, in which case this is actually better practice.

rfscoach wrote:I don't understand the belief the a huge tounament is a better tournament. When you get that big the tests suffer as you have to trade variety of styles for quickness in grading. Not a fan....

I know it could happen but I don't think it needs to be that way. If a tournament has an event run in the last 3 blocks out of 6 with 12 teams each and another has that event run all day with 12 teams each block I don't see there being a significant difference needed regarding quickness in grading. Granted for the 7 events that would be run in the first 3 blocks in the former that is not the case when switched to the latter. Also a larger tournament could mean you have twice the help grading the tests and thus they don't need to be changed as you stated. Ultimately it just comes down to the test's author and the decisions they make.

One nice thing about the larger tournament I feel is that you get a better feel for where an event stands. Go to a tournament with 20 teams and you place 2nd in A&P does not mean the same as placing 2nd out of 72. That same team that was 2nd out of 20 might go to the larger competition and place 15/72 which might better help them see where they stand. Also for schools that compete two teams this could better help them see how close they are. If they ranked 2 and 3 out of 20 teams in A&P they seem really close in performance. But send them to the bigger tournament and they place 2nd and 12th out of 72 and you start to see that their could be a bigger separation than originally thought.

rfscoach wrote:I don't understand the belief the a huge tounament is a better tournament. When you get that big the tests suffer as you have to trade variety of styles for quickness in grading. Not a fan....

I hear your point, however I don't think it reflects the reality at our tournament. We have hundreds of volunteers from both Solon and the participating teams, which makes it entirely possible to grade complex exams successfully. Do I recommend extended response questions to our supervisors? No. But I don't recommend them for small tournaments either - grading them is often arbitrary. Multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, matching, short answer, calculations, etc. are all still easily scorable within the time available.

For example, Experimental Design is not an event whose grading you can shorten - the format is exactly the same each week. It is also an event that requires a lot of time to grade well. However, last year with 66 teams we still had results finalized for XPD before 5:00, allowing us to start awards on time. We had an experienced supervisor and gave her abundant volunteers so they could split up the various sections.

We are also recruiting state and national event supervisors to run our mechanical events to ensure we can move through sufficient teams with quality. MIT runs 70 teams every year with high levels of difficulty and quality - I am confident we can match that.