Starting a High School Quiz Bowl Team and competing

[Nusrat10462]

Hello! My high school is located in NY the Bronx and it has has a trivia club and would like to form a Quiz Bowl Team. However, we don't know how to. We'd like to follow in the footsteps on high schools like Hunter College High School and Stuyvesant high school. Where do we sign up and who do we go to? Also, we'd like to participate in local/regional tournaments in NY, as in in High School's that host tournaments and in colleges that do the same. Can anyone please tell us what to do! Thank you

[Mechanical Beasts]

New York and New Jersey, particularly the latter, have a pretty good slate of tournaments. NYU and Columbia haven't been great at hosting high school tournaments in the past; I'll be at NYU next year and I'll see if I can get anything going in the city.

If you have any contacts with other NYC high schools--whether it be for math teams, Science Olympiad, or other trivia clubs--I'd love to have them; if we can get a good mailing list together we're much more likely to be able to get a coherent circuit going.

The one tournament in the city proper that's definitely going to happen is hosted by Hunter in February. We'll see what else we can do.

[Lightly Seared on the Reality Grill]

Are you from Horace Mann? Just curious.
Anyway, as Andy said, there are a LOT of tournaments in New Jersey and a few on Long Island, but almost none in NYC proper. Hunter has held Prison Bowl for a few years now, but that attracts more national-level teams than local. Hunter's also planning to hold some kind of tournament in the fall, and there are plans to hold a National History Bowl regional at Columbia, albeit on a Sunday. Your best bet is to keep checking this thread for potential tournaments:
http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 47&t=11517
I definitely recommend going to LIFT (held at Kellenberg, a Nassau County school). When it doesn't conflict with the PSAT, it attracts over 50 teams. When a tournament is finalized, a thread for it is almost always made in the Regular Season Announcements board, and they contain information on how to sign up, costs, etc.

[ryanrosenberg]

Definitely check out the LI and New Jersey tournaments (there's a NY/NJ thread under "National and Regional Comparisons and Discussion"). Also, I'm very tentatively planning a Fall Novice tournament mirror here in Westchester, and your team would be more than welcome to attend.

edit: just look at Robert's link

[Nusrat10462]

Hey guys, thanks for your help!
No, my school is Bronx Science
And yes, we have a VERY productive Science Olympiad Team
I found out that we can go to out of state tournaments, I see that most are in NJ anyway
Can anyone help me with this though? How do I know whatthe format is like, and what to help my team study? Can we sign up for a tournament even if we JUST started and are in novice level? Would that be bad? I know where the tournaments are located, it's hust that I don't want to embarass my school, haha by taking my team to a tournament and then doing bad. Where can I get a better understanding of the type of questions? Also, do we have to become an official team, as in have our name in your mailing list or do we just come to tournaments? Is there a preliminary registration to become a team first? Thank you for all your help!

[Nusrat10462]

Thanks for all your help!
I'm from Bronx Science actually, and yeah I found out that most of the tournaments are outside NY, I think our team can do that
Also, is it ok if a novice team participates in these tournaments? I mean, it seems like everyone has it in the bag so are we allowed to just come in? Or do we have to do a registration. As in, do we have to do something to become "official" in your book as a team like a preliminary registration that qualifies us as competitors? Also, I understand how to find tournaments and contact the people to sign us up but is there anything that can help me get a better understanding of the format, rules, and question of the tournaments? Are they all under one thing, like the NAQT?
Thanks again

[Important Bird Area]

Welcome back!

1. Feel free to just contact the tournament hosts to register and attend events- you don't need to have "official recognition" from your school (which, however, may be very helpful in securing funding).

2. Question styles and samples: NAQT has sample packets at various difficulty levels posted here. In addition, quizbowlpackets.com has an excellent archive with lots of complete tournaments posted for free.

3. Which tournaments to attend? If you're worried about difficulty, you might want to start off with an event intended for new teams and players. Such events will usually have some kind of label in the title, like "novice" or "introductory" or "freshman/sophomore." It's a good idea to play a bunch of packets at different levels in practice before you decide- you'll get to see the difference between a novice tournament and regular difficulty.

[Important Bird Area]

Are they all under one thing, like the NAQT?

Many tournaments in metro New York use NAQT questions and rules, but there are also many good tournaments not affiliated with NAQT. You are fortunate that you have many options to choose from near where you live.

[ryanrosenberg]

For studying packets and the types of questions that come up, http://www.quizbowlpackets.com and the Torrey Pines Quizbowl Database (http://quizbowl.tpclubs.com/?page=db) are invaluable resources.

In terms of a novice tournament you might want to go to, Hunter is hosting the Fall Novice Tournament on October 29th; that would be a good tournament for introducing a new team to quizbowl.