Hi everyone! I was wondering how the waitlist for champs works. Is there an individual waitlist for each District (FIN, FIM, ECT.)? Or is it just a general waitlist that has every single FRC team that signed up for it?
AFAIK there’s the priority waitlist and the main waitlist, not divided by district/region. Priority waitlist has more slots than main waitlist, and teams get into champs off both waitlists via lottery.
What’s the difference between the priority and the normal list? Also thanks for the response it’s really helpful.
Per the Championship Eligibility Criteria published here: Championship Eligibility Criteria | FIRST. Basically the Original & Sustaining teams, Hall of Fame teams who were not part of the prequalified HOF group as well as Rookie Allstar and Winning Alliance backup teams who did not get a wildcard at their event.
Priority waitlist. Teams are picked throughout the competition season to keep the amount of teams coming pre-qualified + from regionals roughly on track. The process is described in detail here.
The open waitlist is a list any team can sign up to. Right before champs, teams are randomly selected off of the open waitlist to fill champs to the desired capacity. Iirc, teams odds to be picked are weighted by the time since a team has been to champs—a longer time without having gone to champs increases the likelihood of getting one of the waitlist slots.
Thank you! This is exactly what I was wondering.
For next year’s reference… how does one sign up for the open waitlist? And when?
Teams sign up for the Open Waitlist through the Dashboard. To do so, a team’s Lead Mentor 1 or 2 must:
- log in to the Dashboard,
- in the Team Events section, click the “Event Options” drop-down menu,
- select View Team Events,
- click the Find An Event button,
- locate the FIRST Championship Event in the event list, and
- click the Waitlist button.