Will You Make it to Nationals?

[MMeteorite1]

Mason and Mentor looking strong as well in Ohio

Our team would have to beat Solon or Centerville. We can do it!

[meteorology125]

We can probably get 4th at states. To get to nationals, we would have to beat Magsig and Mentor Memorial, which is improbable.

[Cheesy Pie]

We will probably not. IMSA (Illinois Math and Science Academy) often gets third at States, because we have New Trier and Stevenson. Enough said.

[emescferrall]

Hahahahahaha . . . yeah, right!! The best our school has ever gotten at State was 2nd, but we've never won

[kentuckyfan1001]

I just wanted to say, after reading a few of these negative posts about how your team has no chance because some "powerhouse team" is going to make it out from your state doesn't really make any sense to me. Every year is a new year, period. This means that previous results mean nothing - they're merely a (weak) predictor of future results. Be the change you want to be! There have been so many "upsets" in the past few years at states that anything is bound to happen.

Do you guys know what place Solon Middle School got at nationals the year before they first won in 2008? Well, they didn't even make it to nationals in 2007. Just think about that for a second. People think that Solon has been such a powerhouse in the past few years that they forget that every team has to start somewhere. I remember in 2007 the sinking feeling after getting 3rd at states, and I never wanted to feel that again.

Other schools have done the same; just look at Marie Murphy, Daniel Wright, and Meads Mill all rising to the top relatively quickly. Meads Mill hardly even had a Science Olympiad team in the ages before, and now they're suddenly a top 5 contender at Nationals again. Division C is similar - look at Mounds View and Adlai E. Stevenson improving quickly so fast (credit to Luo!), So, getting better as a team, at whatever level, is far from impossible.

A word of advice to those who want this change to happen practically: events come in and out every year, but the culture of an SO program lasts. Studying for events as an individual takes you only so far, because you can only do so many events. What truly matters is changing the attitude of the team as a whole; if you can get all 15 people motivated to do their best in each and every event, you will see improvement. This won't make you a national title winner overnight, but if you set realistic goals and keep your team motivated, your team will do better. There aren't too many secrets in constructing a successful team.

[Luo]

Do you guys know what place Solon Middle School got at nationals the year before they first won in 2008? Well, they didn't even make it to nationals in 2007. Just think about that for a second. People think that Solon has been such a powerhouse in the past few years that they forget that every team has to start somewhere. I remember in 2007 the sinking feeling after getting 3rd at states, and I never wanted to feel that again.

Other schools have done the same; just look at Marie Murphy, Daniel Wright, and Meads Mill all rising to the top relatively quickly. Meads Mill hardly even had a Science Olympiad team in the ages before, and now they're suddenly a top 5 contender at Nationals again. Division C is similar - look at Mounds View and Adlai E. Stevenson improving quickly so fast (credit to Luo!), So, getting better as a team, at whatever level, is far from impossible.

Thanks for the shoutout. Similar to your experience with Solon in 2007, Mounds View's success was motivated in large part by our disappointing 7th place finish at state in 2010. Everyone was steadfastly determined to take the state title the next year, and after we did, the prevailing attitude of the team for the next three years shifted to be much more driven and focused on doing the best we possibly could at nationals. I'm immensely proud of how Mounds View improved from 7th at state my freshman year to 7th at nationals my senior year. An attitudinal shift was all it took, and it's all I think it would take for many teams to become national contenders.

[Cheesy Pie]

Do you guys know what place Solon Middle School got at nationals the year before they first won in 2008? Well, they didn't even make it to nationals in 2007. Just think about that for a second. People think that Solon has been such a powerhouse in the past few years that they forget that every team has to start somewhere. I remember in 2007 the sinking feeling after getting 3rd at states, and I never wanted to feel that again.

Other schools have done the same; just look at Marie Murphy, Daniel Wright, and Meads Mill all rising to the top relatively quickly. Meads Mill hardly even had a Science Olympiad team in the ages before, and now they're suddenly a top 5 contender at Nationals again. Division C is similar - look at Mounds View and Adlai E. Stevenson improving quickly so fast (credit to Luo!), So, getting better as a team, at whatever level, is far from impossible.

Thanks for the shoutout. Similar to your experience with Solon in 2007, Mounds View's success was motivated in large part by our disappointing 7th place finish at state in 2010. Everyone was steadfastly determined to take the state title the next year, and after we did, the prevailing attitude of the team for the next three years shifted to be much more driven and focused on doing the best we possibly could at nationals. I'm immensely proud of how Mounds View improved from 7th at state my freshman year to 7th at nationals my senior year. An attitudinal shift was all it took, and it's all I think it would take for many teams to become national contenders.

Stevenson and New Trier's JV teams are better than our varsity teams (We know from invites THIS YEAR.)

[Crazy Puny Man]

Do you guys know what place Solon Middle School got at nationals the year before they first won in 2008? Well, they didn't even make it to nationals in 2007. Just think about that for a second. People think that Solon has been such a powerhouse in the past few years that they forget that every team has to start somewhere. I remember in 2007 the sinking feeling after getting 3rd at states, and I never wanted to feel that again.

Other schools have done the same; just look at Marie Murphy, Daniel Wright, and Meads Mill all rising to the top relatively quickly. Meads Mill hardly even had a Science Olympiad team in the ages before, and now they're suddenly a top 5 contender at Nationals again. Division C is similar - look at Mounds View and Adlai E. Stevenson improving quickly so fast (credit to Luo!), So, getting better as a team, at whatever level, is far from impossible.

Thanks for the shoutout. Similar to your experience with Solon in 2007, Mounds View's success was motivated in large part by our disappointing 7th place finish at state in 2010. Everyone was steadfastly determined to take the state title the next year, and after we did, the prevailing attitude of the team for the next three years shifted to be much more driven and focused on doing the best we possibly could at nationals. I'm immensely proud of how Mounds View improved from 7th at state my freshman year to 7th at nationals my senior year. An attitudinal shift was all it took, and it's all I think it would take for many teams to become national contenders.

I agree with this. Before, SO was an activity that kids at my school hardly took seriously. A lot of the kids would just play Starcraft during practice Then, our attitude began changing in my 9th grade year, and we became more focused (I was still on the Division B team that year), but they finished 6th that year, which was disappointing for both the middle school and high school teams. The year after, we became even more determined to qualify for nationals, and we took the title from Bloomington (we were quite shocked too). Indeed, ANY team can become a rising star, and ANYTHING can happen; in 2011, Bloomington North was 4th, and didn't qualify for nationals that year.

On the note of shout-outs, I think Ward Melville and Seven Lakes deserve them too

[Bozongle]

A word of advice to those who want this change to happen practically: events come in and out every year, but the culture of an SO program lasts. Studying for events as an individual takes you only so far, because you can only do so many events. What truly matters is changing the attitude of the team as a whole; if you can get all 15 people motivated to do their best in each and every event, you will see improvement. This won't make you a national title winner overnight, but if you set realistic goals and keep your team motivated, your team will do better. There aren't too many secrets in constructing a successful team.

I agree with this, however that's a problem, in my opinion for our team. Being a Division B team, you have middle schoolers who aren't that matured yet and don't take science olympiad that seriously. On my team we have a few people who really work hard for Science Olympiad everyday and keep it as one of their priorities. Especially for 6th, 7th, 8th graders, middle school isn't that challenging/busy to make it so studying for SO tough, it's just hard to get everyone motivated to study really hard, because normally it's not something you do on a regular basis around that age.

I wish it was easier to get the whole team working at an equal level and pace, and completely determined to do extremely good at every event. I believe that is one of the reasons we lost our nats spot last year in 3rd place, people didn't take the program seriously. In fact one of my partners did not do ANYTHING at all over the course of a few months, and barely knew Ohm's law by competition time for shock value.

Using this year as an example, at our most recent invitational, I along with my partners, were the only ones to get golds at competition for our team. I don't mean to brag in ANYWAY, but I want to make a point that the rest of the team isn't on top of their game, and that shouldn't be happening even if it is an invitational. We didn't even compete in two building events because we were unprepared.

Crazy Puny Man could probably attest to this (we both go to the same school district, he's on Division C, i'm on Division B) in the fact that not everyone is up to par in terms of studying/focusing as they should for the level of state competition we will be facing this year. Hopefully that changes by regionals time.

What's a good way to get the rest of your team motivated to do their best?

[Luo]

What's a good way to get the rest of your team motivated to do their best?

Establish a culture of high expectations from everyone on the team for everyone on the team. At Mounds View, for the last three years I was there, everyone on the team wanted to do well (and worked their butt off to do well) so that they wouldn't let down their teammates.