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Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 13th, 2015, 7:32 pm
by Milankovitch1
BWAPP2001 wrote:Milankovitch1 wrote:Ohio Div B
If you took the Anatomy and/or Meteorology test in Columbus, let me know what you thought of the tests. What were the biggest surprise questions for you? Thanks
I took the anatomy test. To me, it wasn't really much of a surprise. All the questions seemed pretty fair, except the obvious bias against Michigan. I didn't like the massive number of immunoglobin and cell type questions though, and the disease questions. I may have a bad memory, but I don't remember a single question about immunodeficiencies or cardiovascular diseases. Good luck at nationals!(At least, I think you're from Memorial.)
Did better at A&P the Meteorology. I think the same person has wrote the state test every year I have took it, in regards to Meteorology. Go Bucks, and go Ohio
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 15th, 2015, 6:43 pm
by curiouscrab
Hard to believe Westlake missed Nationals because Air Trajectory was a trial.
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 16th, 2015, 3:55 am
by John Richardsim
curiouscrab wrote:Hard to believe Westlake missed Nationals because Air Trajectory was a trial.
Wait, does Ohio use a different tie-breaker for overall scores? Wouldn't Memorial still have gotten 2nd (3 firsts to 1)?
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 16th, 2015, 4:14 am
by Unome
John Richardsim wrote:curiouscrab wrote:Hard to believe Westlake missed Nationals because Air Trajectory was a trial.
Wait, does Ohio use a different tie-breaker for overall scores? Wouldn't Memorial still have gotten 2nd (3 firsts to 1)?
Yeah, that's what I also saw.
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 16th, 2015, 5:08 am
by chalker
John Richardsim wrote:curiouscrab wrote:Hard to believe Westlake missed Nationals because Air Trajectory was a trial.
Wait, does Ohio use a different tie-breaker for overall scores? Wouldn't Memorial still have gotten 2nd (3 firsts to 1)?
Correct. The air trajectory situation didn't impact who's going to Nationals.
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 17th, 2015, 6:37 am
by jbt22
boomvroomshroom wrote:jbt22 wrote:I have an idea which would allow more competitive teams to make it to nationals without exceeding the maximum capacity of 60 teams in each division. The US could be divided into, say, 10 districts, which each would consist of a number of states whose total SO member population would sum to approximately 700 teams. There would then be a district competition which precedes the national competition in which the top 4-7 teams from each state (as determined from the each state’s state tournament) compete in their corresponding district competition, with the top 6 teams in each district then advancing to the national competition. In this way, more competitive teams from each state would be permitted to advance and the national competition wouldn't necessarily be restricted to 1 or 2 teams from each state. It would also make the national competition much more intense, as the competition level would be heightened significantly from the influx of really great 3rd-6th place state finishers at many of the most competitive SO states (such as Ohio, California, Michigan, etc.). What do you guys think about this idea?
P.S. The number of teams in each district was not chosen arbitrarily. If we wanted to have an equal number of teams in each district, we would the total number of teams (6921) divided by the number of districts (10), which gives approximately 700 teams in each district.
ROTC actually does something like this.
Unfortunately it's not very likely that SO would end up carrying out this idea. The point of this all isn't really to be fair to the competition, but to be fair to the states. I personally think it's a nice idea, but then there would be states that would never send a team to Nats. And that's what SO wants - a team from every state, not just a team from every general geographic location (I'm assuming this is how you'll divide up the districts).
Given the states that normally dominate (CA, OH, NY, PA, TX, etc.) they'll overshadow the bordering states that probably have less funding. Some schools have dominated their own highly competitive states for years (Troy, Centerville, Harriton, etc.); imagine if other states were lumped under that umbrella, too.
Besides, the Parade of States is a fun tradition
After looking at some of the previous forums addressing national qualification, I think you make a good point about SO wanting the best teams from each state rather than the top 60 teams nationally. However, I do have one alternative that I believe was not addressed on previous forums. It appears that the current national competition is limited to 120 teams (60 teams in each division). What if there were 2 separate national tournaments on different days (one solely for division B and one solely for division C) whereby each tournament could support say 100 teams from the respective division. Each state would be guaranteed 1 team each (which would give 50 teams) and the remaining 50 teams would be divided proportionally by SO team population (this is similar to how the legislature is divided into Congress and Senate). This definitely wouldn't be as expensive as several district tournaments and would not present any additional travel/funding burdens for schools. Furthermore, this would permit more teams to advance to the national competition without threatening state-based representation. The only lingering problem could be the cost of running two national tournaments (but I think the cost is well worth the effect of helping more students have more chances at competition and recognition).
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 17th, 2015, 8:43 am
by Chris_L
Going on to what Boomvroomshroom was saying about SoCal. We have more teams than most of the rest of the states in the nation with 2 bids to the national tournament yet we only get 1. Especially with such a dominant school like Troy it is near impossible to go to Nats from our state even though we have some of the best and most competitive teams in the nation.
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 17th, 2015, 11:23 am
by chalker
jbt22 wrote:The only lingering problem could be the cost of running two national tournaments (but I think the cost is well worth the effect of helping more students have more chances at competition and recognition).
It's not just the cost (which is significant). In addition:
-The logistics involved are immense. National tournament committees on average work for about 3 years planning and preparing for the event. it's a major disruption to the college campus, much more that any state tournament. Part of that is because it's really a multi-day event, with activities starting usually on Thursday and going through mid-day Monday. The bulk of the activities of course are on Friday and Saturday.
-Since most teams travel from out of state, there needs to be plenty of hotel rooms and dorms to go around. Hence, it'd be unlikely to be able to run 2 tournaments on back to back days. Rather, you'd have to do them on back to back weeks.
-There is a huge issue with scheduling more than ~60 teams in a day. Right now, we do 10 teams per time block. With ~100 teams, we'd have to do at least 15 per time block. A lot of the specialized labs aren't big enough to hold that many students. And with a lot of the building events, we'd have to have lots of parallel testing stations / courses setup, which will take up a lot more room.
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 17th, 2015, 5:35 pm
by John Richardsim
Chris_L wrote:Going on to what Boomvroomshroom was saying about SoCal. We have more teams than most of the rest of the states in the nation with 2 bids to the national tournament yet we only get 1. Especially with such a dominant school like Troy it is near impossible to go to Nats from our state even though we have some of the best and most competitive teams in the nation.
Well, as you know, California also breaks their state organization into North and South. If California was allowed to get 3 or 4 bids as a state as a whole, couldn't other large states such as New York split up its organization and receive three or four bids? Or, if you would prefer, you could try to advocate for the ending of the split between California North and South. And then SoCal teams could try to take the bid that once was NorCal's...
Re: Ohio 2015
Posted: April 17th, 2015, 5:49 pm
by Unome
John Richardsim wrote:Chris_L wrote:Going on to what Boomvroomshroom was saying about SoCal. We have more teams than most of the rest of the states in the nation with 2 bids to the national tournament yet we only get 1. Especially with such a dominant school like Troy it is near impossible to go to Nats from our state even though we have some of the best and most competitive teams in the nation.
Well, as you know, California also breaks their state organization into North and South. If California was allowed to get 3 or 4 bids as a state as a whole, couldn't other large states such as New York split up its organization and receive three or four bids? Or, if you would prefer, you could try to advocate for the ending of the split between California North and South. And then SoCal teams could try to take the bid that once was NorCal's...
Isn't the split run as part of the same organization? (As in, doesn't California "normally" exist as one state with two bids, and just split them between North and South?)