WUHSAC

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WUHSAC, or the Washington University High School Academic Competition, is Washington University's annual high school quiz bowl competition that generally takes place in January or February. Since 2022, the tournament has been a mirror of the DART set; from 2013 to 2021, it used Yale's housewritten BHSAT questions. In previous years, questions were written by the WUSTL team. Teams participating can qualify for the PACE NSC.

Characteristics

WUHSAC is one of the flagship tournaments of the Missouri high school quiz bowl circuit, usually drawing around 30 teams. WUHSAC is also noteworthy as one of the few Missouri tournaments which draws a large number of out of state teams, recently from places like Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee and Florida.

WUHSAC also used the Gordon Arsenoff's WUStL Updates Statistics Live! (WUStL!) online scorekeeping system, which was used for other WUSTL tournaments from the 2012 WUHSAC to the 2019 WUHSAC.

Unusually, WUHSAC uses 20-point powers in a simulacrum of the NSC. All other aspects are the same as in standard quizbowl; there are 5-point negs and no bouncebacks on bonuses.

History

Prior to 2013, WUHSAC was intended to be a slightly harder than average house-written tournament, similar to Harvard's HFT. Beginning with the 2008 iteration, the set drew criticism from players such as Charlie Dees due to poor difficulty control, the use of biographical clues, and generally poor writing quality. This criticism eventually led to the adoption of Yale's Bulldog High School Academic Tournament set in 2013, which was well-received.

Recent tournament directors have included Sean Phillips and Charles Hang. Jacob O'Rourke has directed the tournament since WUHSAC XXI.

External Links

1999-2007 WUHSAC Results

Criticism of the 2008 iteration

2012 set discussion

Results

Year Champion Runner-up
1999 New Madrid County Central Unknown
January 2000 Bartlett Unknown
December 2000 Bartlett Lafayette
2002 Detroit Catholic Central Walton
2003 Detroit Catholic Central St. Andrew's
2004 New Trier Detroit Country Day
2005 Dunbar A Dunbar B
2006 Dunbar Madisonville North Hopkins
2007 North Kansas City New Trier
2008 North Kansas City Rockford Auburn
2009 Rockford Auburn Carbondale
2010 Chatham Glenwood Parkway Central
2011 Carbondale Northmont
2012 Ladue A Clayton A
2013 Ladue A Detroit Catholic Central
2014 Ladue A Northmont
2015 Hallsville A Savannah
2016 Hannibal A Woodford County
2017 MICDS Ladue A
2018 Detroit Catholic Central Ladue A
2019 Ladue A St. Joseph Central A
2020 Ladue A St. Joseph Central A
2021 Ladue A Kinkaid
2022 Clayton A College Heights Christian
2023 Fair Grove Parkway West A
2024 Mexico College Heights Christian