Yeah, I thought of that, but it seems so grossly unfair I didn't think it was a viable possibility. On second consideration I suppose it's reasonable.rfscoach wrote:They could be broken by the date the registration numbers were sent to the national office...Luo wrote:I wonder how they break ties. The two methods I think seem most fair would be to either use last year's registration numbers as a tiebreaker or else use the state's most recent placing at nationals as a tiebreaker. Either of these tiebreakers would have resulted in Indiana getting the second Division B spot over Colorado.
Everywhere else on the list, they ranked tied states in alphabetical order. However, the only place it actually mattered (the Indiana/Colorado Division B tie) was the only place that the alphabetically latter state was listed ahead of the alphabetically former state.
Although it's probably an extremely remote possibility, it makes me wonder how they would break the tie at 66 if two states dropped out in Division C. If they broke the tie based on last year's registration numbers, Minnesota would get the spot. If they broke the tie based on last year's national placings, New Jersey would get the spot. If they broke the tie based on the current ordering, which appears to be simply alphabetical, Kansas would get the spot.
Or is there another possible tiebreaker they could be using that I'm missing? It just seems weird that they ordered tied states alphabetically in all cases except in the one place it actually mattered.
So are you saying it's possible that they break ties by alphabetization when it doesn't matter for nationals qualification, but break ties by the date the registration numbers were sent to the national office when it does matter for nationals qualification?