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The past two seasons, Troy (CA) has largely maintained a stable list of invites: Troy, Mira Loma, MIT, and Golden Gate. Unfortunately (as has been the case for many other teams across the country) the 2018-2019 season has created some scheduling conflicts. Specifically for Troy:

• MIT and Mira Loma are both on 1/12/19.
• Golden Gate and Regionals are both on 2/9/19. (N.B. For the 2016-17 season, Troy sent one team to each of these competitions. However, starting the 2017-18 season, SoCal State Science Olympiad has in place a rule expressly disallowing this practice.)

After some consideration, Troy has chosen to attend Mira Loma on 1/12/19 with two teams. Therefore, the schedule currently appears as follows:

• Troy (12/8/18)
• Mira Loma (1/12/19)
• Regionals (2/9/19)

Troy would like to attend one more invitational (with two teams) in January or February. In researching the various possibilities, the following three factors are being weighed:

• Strength of competition: this has special import since neither MIT nor Golden Gate will be on the schedule
• Location: ease of travel, especially considering the winter season; public transit is a huge plus
• Date: before Regionals is preferred

With that in mind, Troy's top possibilities are (in no particular order):

• Yale (1/26/19): date is ideal, coming two weeks before/after other competitions; cons are question marks about who will be there and it being moderately inaccessible (one hour from BDL by car or two hours from NYC by train)
• SOUP (2/16/19): location is great and easily accessible, there should be some high level competition; the date after Regionals is not ideal
• Cornell (2/16/19): some great competition has already signed up and it is the site of this season's Nationals; getting to/from Ithaca in the middle of winter is (potentially) a nightmare and the date is also after Regionals

Finally, while Troy would love to attend more than one of these competitions, it typically only flies out to the East Coast once during the invitational season.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated before a final decision is made in the next couple weeks.

All three of the top picks you listed are University-hosted. Is that something in particular you are looking for or not?

I'm just going to throw out an additional suggestion; the Solon Invitational, currently scheduled for 2/2, frequently has strong competition; 2018 saw Mason, Mentor, Stevenson, New Trier, Northville, Grand Haven, International Academy, and other Nationals veterans and contenders competing. The tradeoff being that while it is scheduled before your regionals, the location draw may not be as strong as with SOUP or Cornell. You are free to take or leave this, of course; I have no doubt that you already have a strong hold on what you are looking for.

(Top to bottom pick): Cornell, SOUP, Yale

EastStroudsburg13 wrote:...Northville, Grand Haven, International Academy...

Don't forget about ^{OTHER TROY}

EastStroudsburg13 wrote:I'm just going to throw out an additional suggestion; the Solon Invitational, currently scheduled for 2/2, frequently has strong competition; 2018 saw Mason, Mentor, Stevenson, New Trier, Northville, Grand Haven, International Academy, and other Nationals veterans and contenders competing. The tradeoff being that while it is scheduled before your regionals, the location draw may not be as strong as with SOUP or Cornell. You are free to take or leave this, of course; I have no doubt that you already have a strong hold on what you are looking for.

I appreciate you saving me from starting this shameless plug myself!

The Solon HS invitational is conveniently located 30 minutes from a major airport, which makes us substantially more accessible than other options you listed (e.g. Cornell). So far we already have the following teams signed up to attend for 2019: Mason, Mounds View, Northville, Stevenson, New Trier, Bayard Rustin, IA - Central, Troy (MI), and Mentor. These teams have all been frequent national contenders - and I expect a few more as September rolls on. We'd love to have you attend!

I might add that if you are interested in attending a University invite, you may need to register sooner than a couple of weeks - these can fill up extremely quickly, as I'm sure you know from MIT. Unless they are willing to open up a slot for you. I would pitch the UMSO invite, but our date is also after your regionals (February 16th). We are very close to DTW airport and have substantial public transportation though

No matter where you go, you won't face much in the way of serious competition. You'd be 1st and 2nd almost certainly at Yale or Cornell, and neither is particularly known for event quality (in fact, I'd say both have particularly low quality events among university-run invitationals). SOUP is probably better-run, but still not up to the level of the top tournaments. I concur with everyone else - Solon is the best bet for quality and competitiveness both. It's probably the next most competitive after MIT.

Have you considered sending one team to MIT and a second to Mira Loma? That would provide serious competition for your A team, with the added bonus of a little bit of pressure on B team to live up to expectations.

Unome wrote:No matter where you go, you won't face much in the way of serious competition. You'd be 1st and 2nd almost certainly at Yale or Cornell, and neither is particularly known for event quality (in fact, I'd say both have particularly low quality events among university-run invitationals). SOUP is probably better-run, but still not up to the level of the top tournaments. I concur with everyone else - Solon is the best bet for quality and competitiveness both. It's probably the next most competitive after MIT.

Have you considered sending one team to MIT and a second to Mira Loma? That would provide serious competition for your A team, with the added bonus of a little bit of pressure on B team to live up to expectations.

Yeah, I remember I gave a similar suggestion to Carmel to split squads and send one to Centerville and one to UChicago (which are both on the same day) but I don't think that would be something our coaches would really favor doing.

Unome wrote:No matter where you go, you won't face much in the way of serious competition. You'd be 1st and 2nd almost certainly at Yale or Cornell, and neither is particularly known for event quality (in fact, I'd say both have particularly low quality events among university-run invitationals). SOUP is probably better-run, but still not up to the level of the top tournaments. I concur with everyone else - Solon is the best bet for quality and competitiveness both. It's probably the next most competitive after MIT.

Have you considered sending one team to MIT and a second to Mira Loma? That would provide serious competition for your A team, with the added bonus of a little bit of pressure on B team to live up to expectations.

I think Unome offers up a very good point and agree with this suggestion