Quote:
Originally Posted by Richie_Richter
Either that, or I think we should make a change to how the qualifying teams are selected to reward teams that show improvement from one regional to the next.
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It's very difficult to balance fairness to all teams - Teams that improve over the course of multiple regionals are great and should be rewarded for doing so (and often are rewarded with spots in St. Louis), but at the same time we need to recognize that most teams in MN don't have the opportunity to do multiple events and show that improvement. Based on my count, 29 of 186 teams did 2 events, which means 157 teams did not have the opportunity to improve between regionals.
That said, since you mentioned 2705... Their first regional was scored at 4 (per the official numbers) and by my rough math their second regional scored around 54. With the cutoff this year being at 35 points, they would make it if we took the best score (which definitely isn't fair for those 157 teams!), but would not if we took their average score (29).
Another note from personal experience... last year, my team made it to states based on our performance at Lake Superior, earning (I think) 39 points. We only would have earned (I think) 19 points North Star... if you average those, we would not have made it to states last year. This year we did not, as we only got 30 points at Lake Superior. We would have gotten (I think) 51 points at North Star, and the average would have been enough for states.
It's very difficult to rank every team in the state in a fair and consistent manner. At least so far, the planning committee has decided that only counting the first event is as fair as we can be. If you have specific suggestions for alternative methods and why they would be fair, please PM them to me here, over e-mail, or on Twitter and I'll make sure the committee hears them... although there are no promises that any changes will actually be made. Sometimes our most vocal individuals, and the ones most likely to push for change, are those coming from teams that do multiple events, and we need to make sure that the other 157 teams also get heard.