Texas 2019

[Justin72835]

Official Results
Division B
Division C

[primitivepolonium]

Personally, I think it will collapse and we will see TX turn into a state like MN or Nor/So Cal, with 7L making Nationals every year (and perhaps earning even more success than they've had so far) and Clements and LASA falling back to clear second-tier teams.

It's too soon to tell, but I highly doubt TX will turn into MN/CA anytime soon just because the scores this year were fairly clustered. I'm most familiar with SoCal, so I'll use that as an example. There's been years where Troy won by only 10-20 points, but most years feature 40-120 point margins (and the most recent years' margins have been on the higher side of that range). On the other hand, TX 2019 was 60 versus 79 versus 89. TX also has a fairly messy history when it comes to State champions, so there's not enough historical support for the development of an elite team.

That said, I can see Texas eventually transitioning to a one team dynamic if 1) Seven Lakes keeps winning, 2) if the margins become more sizeable, and 3) if Science Olympiad dies down at LASA/Clements or any up-and-coming schools. #3 can definitely happen if kids start regarding Science Olympiad as a high effort, low reward activity in terms of college apps. It's definitely been witnessed in one Nats regular.

As for your rhetorical question about what motivates elite teams, there's more than college apps involved for sure. Most kids care a lot about the outcome of the team, the friendships, and learning, but I've also met my fair share of Troy SciOly kids who hated SciOly and did it primarily to keep the teachers/coaches in their good graces. A lot of it does depend on parents though, since SciOly is primarily parent funded. Being able to go to Nats sounds prestigious and is a huge selling point for a lot of parents, and even then, Nats sours if not enough Nats-medalling kids get into prestigious colleges. SciOly doesn't have to be a money sap, but it definitely is a time sap, and I can most certainly see parents pulling kids out of SciOly so they can focus on other Science Olympiads or leadership instead.

I don't know if this necessarily will happen in Texas, though, because (pardon my Texas illiteracy if I misunderstood this system) it sounds like kids with top GPAs get guaranteed admissions to one of their pretty good state universities.

SoCal is basically the same - it's widely assumed that Troy is strong mainly because of Kurt Wahl (though I've never heard from someone at Troy on this subject so I'm not certain).

Yeah basically. Troy has very little student infrastructure, and what it does have is not very good at all. Wahl also has the additional power of being very influential in the science department when it comes to grades, letters of rec, and sometimes internship connections, so getting in his good books (easiest via SciOly) is a huge boon.

[cool hand luke]

which of those three schools do the top Texas middle schools feed?

of say the top 10 division b, where do these go? I think that could go along ways to answer the question.

this years results

1. Beckendorff
2. Kealing
3. Bonham (no)
4. Austin Area Homeschool (no)
5. Seven Lakes
6. Wood Creek
8. Central Texas Science Team (no)
8. Sartartia (no)
9 . Tays
10 North Austin Science alliance (no)

[Unome]

which of those three schools do the top Texas middle schools feed?

of say the top 10 division b, where do these go? I think that could go along ways to answer the question.

this years results

1. Beckendorff
2. Kealing
3. Bonham (no)
4. Austin Area Homeschool (no)
5. Seven Lakes
6. Wood Creek
8. Central Texas Science Team (no)
8. Sartartia (no)
9 . Tays
10 North Austin Science alliance (no)

Beckendorff is the primary feeder for Seven Lakes HS. Seven Lakes JHS I believe mainly feeds Tompkins. I know Wood Creek and Tays are in the same district, don't know the details. Kealing doesn't officially feed a powerhouse as far as I'm aware but quite a few LASA competitors would have gone to Kealing.

[lumosityfan]

which of those three schools do the top Texas middle schools feed?

of say the top 10 division b, where do these go? I think that could go along ways to answer the question.

this years results

1. Beckendorff
2. Kealing
3. Bonham (no)
4. Austin Area Homeschool (no)
5. Seven Lakes
6. Wood Creek
8. Central Texas Science Team (no)
8. Sartartia (no)
9 . Tays
10 North Austin Science alliance (no)

Beckendorff is the primary feeder for Seven Lakes HS. Seven Lakes JHS I believe mainly feeds Tompkins. I know Wood Creek and Tays are in the same district, don't know the details. Kealing doesn't officially feed a powerhouse as far as I'm aware but quite a few LASA competitors would have gone to Kealing.

Beckendorff does feed into Seven Lakes, Seven Lakes feeds into Tompkins and Seven Lakes, Wood Creek feeds into Katy (which does not have a team AFAIK) and Tompkins, and Tays feeds into Tompkins.

[cool hand luke]

the absence of DFW area schools (or should I say that most of the good schools are Houston and Austin) is interesting. I wonder why DFW isn't very involved.

[EastStroudsburg13]

the absence of DFW area schools (or should I say that most of the good schools are Houston and Austin) is interesting. I wonder why DFW isn't very involved.

Could be a variety of things. I suspect the regionals close to DFW aren't doing a very good job of attracting schools to be involved in their tournaments. Perhaps there's another STEM activity that's more popular among them. I continue to maintain that the fully-open nature of Texas regionals and the strange setup for events serves as an implicit barrier to new teams, which have to navigate that system in addition to SO itself.

In the end, these are questions that fall on TSO. The fact that TSO hasn't been able to attract enough teams to give itself two bids falls solely on the state organization, especially considering the geographic gaps in TSO participation that are apparent. It's going to take some internal fixes to rectify that.

[Riptide]

Keep in mind that even though we don't know what will happen in 2020, either LASA will reach 4 years without a national bid, or Clements will hit 3, or both.

Both Clements and LASA attended nationals in 2017, so they are 2 years without nationals currently. Also on a small side note, Texas C is not that far behind Florida C in terms of team numbers and with UT Austin doing a ton of outreach, it is quite possible Texas gets its bid back as early as next year.

which of those three schools do the top Texas middle schools feed?

of say the top 10 division b, where do these go? I think that could go along ways to answer the question.

this years results

1. Beckendorff
2. Kealing
3. Bonham (no)
4. Austin Area Homeschool (no)
5. Seven Lakes
6. Wood Creek
8. Central Texas Science Team (no)
8. Sartartia (no)
9 . Tays
10 North Austin Science alliance (no)

Lumo and Unome are correct on the feeding of the schools (Seven Lakes JH splits into Tompkins and Seven Lakes, with the majority of students going to Tompkins).

[EastStroudsburg13]

Did some quick analysis on registered C schools from Texas (90 registered schools total). The Houston area accounts for 43 of those schools, i.e. nearly half of the state. The Austin/Waco area accounts for 17 schools. DFW had 14 schools, Corpus Christi/McAllen/Brownsville had 12 schools, and San Antonio had 4 schools. Everything west of San Antonio is completely barren.

The room for growth is pretty clear just from the numbers.

EDIT: B analysis shows much the same: out of 74 registered schools, 36 are in the Houston area. DFW, Austin/Waco, and CC/McAllen/Brownsville have 11 each. San Antonio has 2. B division at least has outliers that were missing from C division; one each from Amarillo, El Paso, and Texarkana.

[cool hand luke]

hopefully next year the panhandle (that sticky up thing at the top) will have it's first division c team. I'm working with some local companies to try and provide coaching for more division B teams from there as well.