High school quizbowl national poll

There have been various attempts at compiling a poll of the top high school teams in the country since the late 1980s. Academic Hallmarks used to release their own Top 25 rankings around 1990. Kevin Commo inquired on the Yahoo quizbowl group about doing a poll in 1999. Some states, such as Illinois, do their own polls for state teams.

Quizbowl Resource Center Poll

The first nationwide NCAA football-style poll for high school teams was run by the Quizbowl Resource Center in May 2001. Eisenhower was the clear #1, receiving 14 of 17 votes cast and outdistancing their in-state rivals Detroit Catholic Central by a handy margin. State College, Dorman, and Cookeville each received one first-place vote each.

The next poll, conducted after the 2001 season had concluded in chaos--with ten different teams making the finals at the five nationals--was perhaps the most open-ended and interesting. 25 people voted, and four different teams received multiple first-place votes. NAQT champion Detroit Catholic Central emerged as the #1, with a slim majority of the #1 votes, 13 out of 25, but a strong edge in total points over #2, the PACE winners State College.

The next poll was run in November 2001, after some of the larger fall tournaments had released results. It saw a dead tie between Detroit Catholic Central and Dorman, each with 7 first-place votes and 292 total points. Cookeville was a hairsbreadth behind, with 289 total points and a first-place vote.

In February 2002, after some more important tournaments, the poll was run for a fourth time, and organizer Matt Weiner saw a strong regional bias in most of the ballots. Dorman received 9 of 16 first-place votes and had 37 more total points than second-place Cookeville in this poll.

Before the next poll, Weiner invited a group of high school coaches and collegiate students with heavy involvement in the high school game to comprise a closed panel that would conduct the future polls.

Eight members of the panel participated in the first overhauled poll, in May 2002. No team won a majority of the first-place votes, and Detroit Catholic Central beat Detroit Country Day by four total points to take the #1 spot.

The 2002 post-season poll, run in July, saw a much clearer picture, as the first-place votes all shifted to NAQT finalists Irmo and St. John's, neither of whom had received any first-place votes in the pre-nationals poll. Irmo's 5 first-place votes and 221 total points edged St. John's 4 first-place votes and 218 points for the top spot.

The 2002 fall poll occurred in December, with Dorman taking 7 of 9 first-place votes to win. Dorman remained on top in the May pre-nationals poll, earning 9 of 10 #1 votes.

In June 2003, Dorman and Thomas Jefferson squared off in the finals of both major nationals, and they likewise attracted all the attention atop the August 2003 postseason poll. Dorman received 4 of 6 first-place votes and edged TJ by 3 total points.

By this time, only six members of the panel were turning in ballots, which jeopardized the representative quality of the poll. The August 2003 edition was the last poll run by Matt Weiner under the official auspices of the Quizbowl Resource Center.

Poll Board

The eligible voters on the HSQB poll when it closed down were:

• High school coaches J.R. Barry of Brookwood, Kevin Commo of Burlington, Julie Gittings of State College, Carolyn Hawkins of Cookeville, Eric Huff of Dorman, and David Riley of Loyola Academy

• Collegiate players Charles Meigs of UCLA, Nate Meyvis of Yale, Chris Romero of Texas A&M, Matt Weiner of VCU, and Robert Wilson of Michigan

• PACE members David Bykowski and Emil Thomas Chuck

Noah Rahman Poll

Noah Rahman independently conducted a poll of hsquizbowl.org posters midway through the nationals schedule in June 2005, which received 10 votes. Thomas Jefferson finished on top with 8 of 10 first-place votes and a comfortable lead over State College. Brookwood and Dupont Manual received the other two #1 votes.

Fred Morlan Poll

In April 2007, HSQB chief administrator and PACE member Fred Morlan set out to conduct a new poll, with the permission of the rest of the HSQB/PACE staff. It followed a rule from the original Weiner poll: anyone could vote, but aberrant ballots would be discarded at Fred's discretion.

Eighteen people voted in the first new poll, with Maggie Walker coming out on top with 16 first-place votes, and second-place State College receiving the other two.

The poll was run once more after nationals, and saw Walker become the first-ever unanimous #1, getting the top spot in all 22 of the ballots cast. Second-place NAQT finisher State College was the clear #2.

In August 2007, the first-ever preseason poll was run, and saw Dorman edge Thomas Jefferson for the top spot.

Links to Full Polls

Poll	Number 1 Ranked Team	Ballots
May 2001	Eisenhower	17
July 2001	Detroit Catholic Central	25
November 2001	Detroit Catholic Central and Dorman	17
February 2002	Dorman	16
May 2002	Detroit Catholic Central	8
July 2002	Irmo	9
December 2002	Dorman	9
May 2003	Dorman	10
August 2003	Dorman	6
June 2005	Thomas Jefferson	10
April 2007	Maggie Walker	18
July 2007	Maggie Walker	22
August 2007	Dorman	15
March 2008	Dorman	12
May 2008	Dorman and Walt Whitman	12
June 2008	Walt Whitman	10
January 2009	Wilmington Charter	15
June 2009	Wilmington Charter	21
August 2009	Maggie Walker	15
January 2010	State College	18
December 2011	Hunter	5
January 2012	Hunter	15
December 2012	Ladue	16
May 2013	Ladue	14