Eligibility

Disclaimer: This article is about rules. Its contents are not authoritative. Please consult official rules for up-to-date information.

The concept of eligibility is used to limit which teams and players can attend which tournaments. In general, any student which attends an academic institution can attend tournaments which are intended for that level of schooling. A player which is allowed to attend such a tournament is eligible, while one who cannot is ineligible.

Eligibility is structured around competition years, which are intended to roughly align with the academic year and are defined as starting on August 1st and ending on the successive July 31st.

NAQT (and in college quizbowl, ACF) publish formal eligibility rules that are typically followed by unaffiliated tournaments using housewrites.

Affiliation

An important aspect of eligibility is affiliation with an education institution. Students who are attending a school or enrolled in a college are affiliated with them.

Players can be affiliated with multiple schools. The most common example of this is a high schooler "playing up" on a college team, but high schoolers can also be affiliated with multiple high schools. In all cases players can only play on a single institution's team at any given tournament.

Middle school/High school	College	NAQT	ACF
one affiliation		can play	not applicable
multiple (non-online, non-homeschool) affiliations		can play for all†
one non-online, non-homeschool affiliation and one online or homeschool affiliation		cannot play for more than one
multiple online or homeschool affiliations		cannot play for more than one
	one affiliation	can play	can play
	multiple affiliations	cannot play for more than one	can play
one affiliation	one affiliation	can play for all†	can play for all††
multiple (non-online, non-homeschool) affiliations	one affiliation	can play for all†	can play for all††
one affiliations	multiple affiliations	cannot play for more than one college, but can play as both college and middle school/high school†	can play for all††

^†: players must contact NAQT at least 14 days before playing for a second squad

^††: since players that are affiliated with both a secondary and post-secondary education institution are typically not enrolled in the latter, they must ensure that they are eligible under ACF rule 4C

Middle school/High school

As non-college students have not been eligible to play ACF tournaments since 2014, NAQT is the only organization creating eligibility rules that apply to middle school and high school players.

Students in homeschool co-ops, homeschool families, or online schools are eligible if they meet the requirements outlined in section G of NAQT's eligibility rules. Players can be affiliated

College

In college, eligibility is extended to players who are working towards their degree. Eligibility can be further divided into Division I and Division II based on the experience of players.

• NAQT requires teams attending ICT or SCT to be affiliated with an accredited post-secondary educational institution, and all players to be registered for the equivalent of three semester-hours (like three quarter-hours)
  • Players that have lower course loads can still be eligible if this is certified to be normal for their degree program or if that is the remainder of the work needed for them to complete their degree
  • Players doing non-course work for their degree like writing a thesis can also be eligible
• ACF requires players to either be undergraduates who are taking at least one class for credit or a graduate student who is working towards a degree
  • Players who are not classified as undergraduates or grad students (e.g. students who are in their 5th year of study for their undergraduate degree) are eligible if they take three courses for credit

Because eligibility is established for an entire competition year, it is common practice for players who are completing thesis work for a graduate degree to finish in the first semester of a given year to ensure they can continue to play for the remainder of the season.