Re: [quizbowl] COTKU/Big Lots comments

> A suggestion for next time (and for every academic tournament):
> Perhaps division II should be made up of undergraduate only teams
> instead of 1st or 2nd year only.  As an undergraduate player at the
> very beginning of my 3rd year, it sucks to play against postdoctoral
> students.  I know that is supposed to make me better, but so would
> playing against people at my level of experience.  Losing by 400
> points to a 30 year old with 2 phd's is a lot less useful than a
> competitive match against other undergraduates.

Where does it end? Maybe people who only have masters degrees can play
Division II? After all, it's unfair to make them play against doctors. Or
maybe the people with one doctorate can play D2 to stay away from the people
with two. At some point you have to accept that
1) there are undergrad-only tournaments out there if you really want them
2a) it's been indisputably shown that grad participation is a good thing so
2b) if grads are going to be around, you'll need to deal with them sooner or
later
3) presumably not every team in D1 had "a 30 year old with 2 phd's" so you
got a lot of games against people of your own level of education, and
complaining about one or two losses that can be attributed to a disparity in
experience level is somewhat unseemly
4) undergrad teams beat grad teams all the time.

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