National Tournament

The National Tournament is the highest level of competition in Science Olympiad. Currently, 60 teams in Division B and 60 teams in Division C qualify each year. There is no national-level tournament for Division A teams.

History
The first National Tournament was held in 1985 at Michigan State University, after two prior years of a Michigan state tournament. 19 teams from Division B and 26 teams from Division C attended the first national tournament, with states represented including Delaware and North Carolina (both of which had run a version of Science Olympiad since the 1970s), Ohio, South Dakota, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Minnesota, and North Dakota, among others. The National Tournament grew quickly, stabilizing near 50 teams per division in the late 1980s. In the first, year some states (including Michigan and Ohio) were allowed to send three teams per division - the current bid allocation system was implemented the following year.

Scoring

 * Main article: Scoring

The original scoring method at the national tournament was high-score-wins. The first place team in each event earned 11 points, the second place team 10 points, and so on - all teams ranking outside of the top ten in an event earned one point. This same scoring method was used at national tournaments through 2000, with successively lower cutoffs and increasing points - by the 2000 National Tournament, the first place team in an event earned 41 points. This accounts for the occasional jump in scores at the national tournament, such as in 1994 and 1998.

In 2001, the current low-score-wins method was implemented at the national tournament, with the first place team in each event earning 1 point, the second place team earning 2 points, and so on. Since 2001, no two teams in an event have been awarded the same number of points under normal circumstances (exceptions include cases of scoring errors, such as in 2013 when J.C. Booth Middle School's rank in Disease Detectives was corrected to 27th place from No Show, resulting in both them and Bearden Middle School earning 27 points).

Past Results

 * Main Article: Category:National tournaments