MIT Invitational 2018

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knottingpurple
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by knottingpurple »

Unome wrote:
WhatScience? wrote:
alylam wrote: We did some testing as well, but we're mainly student run with our coach having little input on our schedules. I just thought that response was the polar opposite to what MIT was to me since we drove up, don't have a returning Nats team, and have captains rather than coaches who decide the schedule lol.
But doesn't favoritism inevitably play a part then?

Also, if it is student run with the purpose of everyone getting to compete at some point in the season, what happens if one of your best at a certain event is not chosen to compete at MIT. MIT is pretty big and getting told that you can't compete even though you are doing the best in a certain event so that everyone gets a chance has go to hurt.
The impact of favoritism depends on the quality of the captains involved. Teams that do well tend to have next to none of it, and vice-versa with those that don't. Also, favoritism is in no way limited to student-run teams.

Where did you see anything about people potentially being denied a spot to allow everyone to compete?
My team is also pretty much student run, and I think favoritism isn't too big a deal - each of the years I've done Science Olympiad, one of our officers hasn't made the States team. Like, we have officers who are sensible enough to say yes I put in a lot of work organising tryouts but other people outperformed me in my events so they should take my spot. We also admitted more people than we can technically take to any of our competitions, so there's competition for States and a Regionals spots but since invites are on weekends, we normally still have more spots than people. I would imagine MIT would be considered more important than any of the invites we go to, but regardless, especially if you go to several invitationals, I would imagine teams have no problem giving everyone a chance to compete and also taking all their top people to their most important competitions.

Of course I don't speak for Mason, their team might be very different from mine, but I don't see how what they've said of their team format would necessarily be a problem.
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by pikachu4919 »

knottingpurple wrote:
Unome wrote:
WhatScience? wrote: But doesn't favoritism inevitably play a part then?

Also, if it is student run with the purpose of everyone getting to compete at some point in the season, what happens if one of your best at a certain event is not chosen to compete at MIT. MIT is pretty big and getting told that you can't compete even though you are doing the best in a certain event so that everyone gets a chance has go to hurt.
The impact of favoritism depends on the quality of the captains involved. Teams that do well tend to have next to none of it, and vice-versa with those that don't. Also, favoritism is in no way limited to student-run teams.

Where did you see anything about people potentially being denied a spot to allow everyone to compete?
My team is also pretty much student run, and I think favoritism isn't too big a deal - each of the years I've done Science Olympiad, one of our officers hasn't made the States team. Like, we have officers who are sensible enough to say yes I put in a lot of work organising tryouts but other people outperformed me in my events so they should take my spot. We also admitted more people than we can technically take to any of our competitions, so there's competition for States and a Regionals spots but since invites are on weekends, we normally still have more spots than people. I would imagine MIT would be considered more important than any of the invites we go to, but regardless, especially if you go to several invitationals, I would imagine teams have no problem giving everyone a chance to compete and also taking all their top people to their most important competitions.

Of course I don't speak for Mason, their team might be very different from mine, but I don't see how what they've said of their team format would necessarily be a problem.
My team was also heavily student-run, and sometimes, in the case that the students do more of the running of the team than the coach does, it actually could possibly be a bit better for student captains to make decisions on most of this since most likely, the captains have had more interaction with the rest of the team members than the coach has and thus, would know more about who's right for the spots. Granted, teenagers may not always have the best judgements, so, my senior year, all of us captains made an agreement that if we disagreed on something to do with making teams, we would consult the coach then and get her input from her observations of everyone, but we definitely trusted each other on making the right decisions, and sometimes, the right decision was clear enough that none of us captains really had much to disagree on. But I'm sure many student-run teams aren't like ours either, so I cannot speak for them as well.
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by nicholasmaurer »

pikachu4919 wrote:
knottingpurple wrote:
Unome wrote: The impact of favoritism depends on the quality of the captains involved. Teams that do well tend to have next to none of it, and vice-versa with those that don't. Also, favoritism is in no way limited to student-run teams.

Where did you see anything about people potentially being denied a spot to allow everyone to compete?
My team is also pretty much student run, and I think favoritism isn't too big a deal - each of the years I've done Science Olympiad, one of our officers hasn't made the States team. Like, we have officers who are sensible enough to say yes I put in a lot of work organising tryouts but other people outperformed me in my events so they should take my spot. We also admitted more people than we can technically take to any of our competitions, so there's competition for States and a Regionals spots but since invites are on weekends, we normally still have more spots than people. I would imagine MIT would be considered more important than any of the invites we go to, but regardless, especially if you go to several invitationals, I would imagine teams have no problem giving everyone a chance to compete and also taking all their top people to their most important competitions.

Of course I don't speak for Mason, their team might be very different from mine, but I don't see how what they've said of their team format would necessarily be a problem.
My team was also heavily student-run, and sometimes, in the case that the students do more of the running of the team than the coach does, it actually could possibly be a bit better for student captains to make decisions on most of this since most likely, the captains have had more interaction with the rest of the team members than the coach has and thus, would know more about who's right for the spots. Granted, teenagers may not always have the best judgements, so, my senior year, all of us captains made an agreement that if we disagreed on something to do with making teams, we would consult the coach then and get her input from her observations of everyone, but we definitely trusted each other on making the right decisions, and sometimes, the right decision was clear enough that none of us captains really had much to disagree on. But I'm sure many student-run teams aren't like ours either, so I cannot speak for them as well.
Our team at Solon HS is heavily student-run, including producing schedules for each invitational we attend. As coaches we provide input and guidance, but most of the decisions are handed by our co-captains. I personally believe allowing the students to run most of the club gives them increased ownership of, and motivation towards, success.
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by alylam »

nicholasmaurer wrote:
pikachu4919 wrote:
knottingpurple wrote:
My team is also pretty much student run, and I think favoritism isn't too big a deal - each of the years I've done Science Olympiad, one of our officers hasn't made the States team. Like, we have officers who are sensible enough to say yes I put in a lot of work organising tryouts but other people outperformed me in my events so they should take my spot. We also admitted more people than we can technically take to any of our competitions, so there's competition for States and a Regionals spots but since invites are on weekends, we normally still have more spots than people. I would imagine MIT would be considered more important than any of the invites we go to, but regardless, especially if you go to several invitationals, I would imagine teams have no problem giving everyone a chance to compete and also taking all their top people to their most important competitions.

Of course I don't speak for Mason, their team might be very different from mine, but I don't see how what they've said of their team format would necessarily be a problem.
My team was also heavily student-run, and sometimes, in the case that the students do more of the running of the team than the coach does, it actually could possibly be a bit better for student captains to make decisions on most of this since most likely, the captains have had more interaction with the rest of the team members than the coach has and thus, would know more about who's right for the spots. Granted, teenagers may not always have the best judgements, so, my senior year, all of us captains made an agreement that if we disagreed on something to do with making teams, we would consult the coach then and get her input from her observations of everyone, but we definitely trusted each other on making the right decisions, and sometimes, the right decision was clear enough that none of us captains really had much to disagree on. But I'm sure many student-run teams aren't like ours either, so I cannot speak for them as well.
Our team at Solon HS is heavily student-run, including producing schedules for each invitational we attend. As coaches we provide input and guidance, but most of the decisions are handed by our co-captains. I personally believe allowing the students to run most of the club gives them increased ownership of, and motivation towards, success.
These are essentially the philosophies Mason runs with and things I have seen over the past couple of years with my team as well. While our coaches contribute an undeniably large amount of effort dealing with our school's admin, getting us to and from invitationals, and just generally supporting us; nearly everything else is handled by the elected captains. Despite being students, we still hold ourselves to the same standards as everyone else we put on our schedules. If ever we believed someone deserved our spot we would not hesitate to hand it over. Ultimately, we run our team with its best interests in mind (rather than our own personal interests); something I think every member has come to believe in and accept.

But that's that and I didn't mean to start a big discussion about this lol. Also, I'm not trying to discredit other teams or make it seem like we're some kind of anomaly (because clearly we are not :D).
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by GeorgeOrwell77 »

Do you need to be invited to the MIT Invitational or is it whoever registers first?
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by knottingpurple »

GeorgeOrwell77 wrote:Do you need to be invited to the MIT Invitational or is it whoever registers first?
Whoever registers first is able to attend the invitational, much like most other invitationals I've heard of - registration does fill up within minutes, though, so this is quite difficult.
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by CarrieFisher »

nicholasmaurer wrote:
pikachu4919 wrote:
knottingpurple wrote:
My team is also pretty much student run, and I think favoritism isn't too big a deal - each of the years I've done Science Olympiad, one of our officers hasn't made the States team. Like, we have officers who are sensible enough to say yes I put in a lot of work organising tryouts but other people outperformed me in my events so they should take my spot. We also admitted more people than we can technically take to any of our competitions, so there's competition for States and a Regionals spots but since invites are on weekends, we normally still have more spots than people. I would imagine MIT would be considered more important than any of the invites we go to, but regardless, especially if you go to several invitationals, I would imagine teams have no problem giving everyone a chance to compete and also taking all their top people to their most important competitions.

Of course I don't speak for Mason, their team might be very different from mine, but I don't see how what they've said of their team format would necessarily be a problem.
My team was also heavily student-run, and sometimes, in the case that the students do more of the running of the team than the coach does, it actually could possibly be a bit better for student captains to make decisions on most of this since most likely, the captains have had more interaction with the rest of the team members than the coach has and thus, would know more about who's right for the spots. Granted, teenagers may not always have the best judgements, so, my senior year, all of us captains made an agreement that if we disagreed on something to do with making teams, we would consult the coach then and get her input from her observations of everyone, but we definitely trusted each other on making the right decisions, and sometimes, the right decision was clear enough that none of us captains really had much to disagree on. But I'm sure many student-run teams aren't like ours either, so I cannot speak for them as well.
Our team at Solon HS is heavily student-run, including producing schedules for each invitational we attend. As coaches we provide input and guidance, but most of the decisions are handed by our co-captains. I personally believe allowing the students to run most of the club gives them increased ownership of, and motivation towards, success.
Our program is similar in that the captains make schedules for each invitational we attend. Our coaches provide input and guidance too, but most of the decisions are handled by our captains. I believe that allowing the students to run most of the club gives us increased ownership of success, but not really any motivation. Any tips?
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by nicholasmaurer »

CarrieFisher wrote: Our program is similar in that the captains make schedules for each invitational we attend. Our coaches provide input and guidance too, but most of the decisions are handled by our captains. I believe that allowing the students to run most of the club gives us increased ownership of success, but not really any motivation. Any tips?
Set a reasonably attainable goal for the season and work towards that. I would also encourage you to attend as many invitational tournaments as possible. People tend to be motivated to study/build when they are competing soon, rather than in several weeks or months. A busy invitational season keeps up the pressure to perform.
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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by dvegadvol »

How about releasing this year's test archive for those of us who couldn't make it to the competition?

It's after Nationals! :D :D :D

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Re: MIT Invitational 2018

Post by kate! »

dvegadvol wrote:How about releasing this year's test archive for those of us who couldn't make it to the competition?

It's after Nationals! :D :D :D

Thanks
MIT tests are prohibited from being traded; that's why they have watermarks. You're only allowed to access them if you went to the competition, and if it's found out you traded them, your school is put on a blacklist. Even if you wanted to go but couldn't make it, you still aren't allowed to see the tests no matter what year it is.
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