MIT Invitational

[windu34]

1. Troy, by a mile
2. Harriton
3. LASA
4. Clements
5. Solon
6. Seven Lakes
7. Mentor
8. Acton-Boxborough
9. WW-P North
10. Chattahoochee

Seven Lakes that far down? And Harriton still up after losing what many say is their best SO class in several years?

Yeah Harriton will definitely take a hard hit this year

[breakingankles]

1. Troy, by a mile
2. Harriton
3. LASA
4. Clements
5. Solon
6. Seven Lakes
7. Mentor
8. Acton-Boxborough
9. WW-P North
10. Chattahoochee

Seven Lakes that far down? And Harriton still up after losing what many say is their best SO class in several years?

I didn't know Harriton's SO class last year was their best; in that case, they'll probably do worse, maybe around 4th-8th.

I personally don't buy into the hype surrounding Seven Lakes. I don't think they've gotten much better over the past few years and there's other really good teams in Texas too. They've never gotten higher than 5th at MIT, too.

[windu34]

1. Troy, by a mile
2. Harriton
3. LASA
4. Clements
5. Solon
6. Seven Lakes
7. Mentor
8. Acton-Boxborough
9. WW-P North
10. Chattahoochee

Seven Lakes that far down? And Harriton still up after losing what many say is their best SO class in several years?

I didn't know Harriton's SO class last year was their best; in that case, they'll probably do worse, maybe around 4th-8th.

I personally don't buy into the hype surrounding Seven Lakes. I don't think they've gotten much better over the past few years and there's other really good teams in Texas too. They've never gotten higher than 5th at MIT, too.

Yes but look at their national placement and recent invitational placements show them way over LASA. I remember one kid from Seven lakes at nationals who placed in 5ish events. Not sure if hes still on the team...

[kenniky]

Predictions:

1. Troy
2. Seven Lakes
3. LASA
4. Harriton
5. Mentor
6. Solon
7. Clements
8. Acton-Boxborough
9. WW-P North
10. Chattahoochee

How is Troy doing post-nationals? I honestly have no idea where they stand right now.

To be completely honest these are mostly complete guesses

however, Troy is Troy, so I don't think it's too much of a gamble to place them 1st

[Fluorine]

Yeah, day before was what I was thinking too (plus that means grads who are working events or tournament stuff can come too). I assume you're talking about the Marriott to the northeast of campus; how many teams actually stay there? I only remember four last year.

I know Archimedean and Chattahoochee were there in addition to us (Boca Raton)

I remember LASA was there too fyi

[Fluorine]

We did a tour last year, although I don't think I went (I usually don't).

We don't go on tours, but we go to the campus to visit all of our event rooms/sites to get accustomed to location and schedule so there is less chance of getting lost and not getting to events on time

Yeah, that's what I usually do too.

On campus then sounds doable then. Would just have to designate an area/time unless Luo has someone particular

[breakingankles]

Seven Lakes that far down? And Harriton still up after losing what many say is their best SO class in several years?

I didn't know Harriton's SO class last year was their best; in that case, they'll probably do worse, maybe around 4th-8th.

I personally don't buy into the hype surrounding Seven Lakes. I don't think they've gotten much better over the past few years and there's other really good teams in Texas too. They've never gotten higher than 5th at MIT, too.

Yes but look at their national placement and recent invitational placements show them way over LASA. I remember one kid from Seven lakes at nationals who placed in 5ish events. Not sure if hes still on the team...

LASA never takes any of these early invitationals seriously (and Clements doesn't either) which is why Seven Lakes appears to be doing well this year. And teams can get worse, too: LASA went from 3rd at nationals (which is what Seven Lakes got last year) to 9th place the year after.

There's no doubt that there's a lot of smart people there; I just don't see them doing that well

[Luo]

Since Luo seems to have disappeared

I'm sorry for my absence. I'm not directly involved with the tournament this year, so I'm not necessarily immediately in the loop when the website is updated or decisions are made. Stephen and Katie are doing an excellent job. Wishing you all a happy new year, and best of luck and skill at the tournament.

Since you're here, do you know of any good locations for the meetup? (I barely remember anything about the campus, plus don't want to plan for someplace that turns out to be in use)

I think that the Forbes Family Cafe on the 1st floor of the Stata Center (building 32) would be ideal for this -- it's a large space with tables and chairs in a nice building, relatively close to the Marriott hotel and the Kendall T stop. (The cafe is only open for weekday lunches, so it's just a large seating area with tables and chairs at any other time.) Unfortunately, on evenings and weekends the building is only accessible with an MIT ID, so if the meetup is at those times you might have to tail someone in and then have someone open the door for people. That might prove too inconvenient since you guys don't have MIT ID cards.

A good publicly-accessible alternative would be the lounge (pictured here: http://news.mit.edu/2006/lounge-0920) adjacent to Lobby 10 (the 1st floor lobby of building 10, also known as Memorial Lobby). It's smaller but has comfy green furniture. MIT students refer to it as the "green lounge" (not to be confused with the Ida Green Lounge, which is something else) or, less commonly, the "dollar bill lounge" (because the glass wall of the lounge has a large image of a dollar bill etched into it). If you ask any MIT student where the "green lounge next to lobby 10" is they'll definitely know. MIT students love to take power naps there during the school year. Sometimes there are a few random people sitting in there, but it's decidedly a public place meant for impromptu gatherings, so a scioly.org meetup wouldn't be a problem.

I love MIT.

[Unome]

I didn't know Harriton's SO class last year was their best; in that case, they'll probably do worse, maybe around 4th-8th.

I personally don't buy into the hype surrounding Seven Lakes. I don't think they've gotten much better over the past few years and there's other really good teams in Texas too. They've never gotten higher than 5th at MIT, too.

Yes but look at their national placement and recent invitational placements show them way over LASA. I remember one kid from Seven lakes at nationals who placed in 5ish events. Not sure if hes still on the team...

LASA never takes any of these early invitationals seriously (and Clements doesn't either) which is why Seven Lakes appears to be doing well this year. And teams can get worse, too: LASA went from 3rd at nationals (which is what Seven Lakes got last year) to 9th place the year after.

There's no doubt that there's a lot of smart people there; I just don't see them doing that well

Usually I'd agree, but I'm leaning towards following the trend from Beckendorff (and windu assuming we're thinking of the same person, he's still around).

We don't go on tours, but we go to the campus to visit all of our event rooms/sites to get accustomed to location and schedule so there is less chance of getting lost and not getting to events on time

Yeah, that's what I usually do too.

On campus then sounds doable then. Would just have to designate an area/time unless Luo has someone particular

The second location Luo mentioned sounds pretty good; easy to get to and pretty centrally located on the campus (and we don't have to spend effort getting in). How about Friday at 7:30 PM, or something like that?

[jkang]

Usually I'd agree, but I'm leaning towards following the trend from Beckendorff (and windu assuming we're thinking of the same person, he's still around).

I don't really know about Clements, but Beckendorff has been good for quite a while now (and unfortunately, Kealing hasn't been that great) but there's still quite some variation between LASA and SL's placements (also the fact that LASA beat SL at MIT last year, even though SL ended up doing better at nats). Thus I don't think that Div B performance is necessarily one of the better ways to judge the eventual Div C performance.