Early Autumn Collegiate Novice

The ACF-sponsored Early Autumn Collegiate Novice Tournament, sometimes shortened to Collegiate Novice or improperly called ACF Novice, is an annual, strictly novice-only collegiate tournament designed as an introduction players who are entirely new to collegiate quizbowl. Andrew Hart conceived of, edited, and arranged for twenty host sites to run the first incarnation of Collegiate Novice in September and October 2010. The tournament consists of exactly ten packets; tossups for the event are are strictly capped at five lines of text, with most bonus parts well under two lines, and are written to be appropriate for absolute novices to academic competition.

The original eligibility restrictions are as follows:

"1. All ACF eligibility rules apply, except when they contradict the rules below.

2. This is a tournament for introducing collegiate novices to quizbowl. Consequently, no high school teams or players are eligible.

3. Anyone (who does not break Rules 1 or 2) who has never played quizbowl before is automatically eligible. Other academic competition does not count as quizbowl for this rule.

4. Players meeting one or more of the following criteria must apply to the head editor for special permission to play:

i. If you have already completed your second year of college (calculated from time in college, not credits). Time in a post-secondary high school program does not count.

ii. If you were ever on a playoff or top-bracket team at NAQT HSNCT or PACE NSC.

iii. If you have ever scored at least 30 points per game at any college tournament.

iv. If you have ever won any college tournament.

5. Anyone who does not fall into any of the four categories listed in Rule 4 is automatically eligible to play." [1]

The goal of Early Collegiate Novice is to "be the immediate positive competitive experience that new players need to get hooked on the game" [2]; as such, host sites are often close together, with an emphasis on minimizing travel time for all teams involved. The first edition of Collegiate Novice had twenty sites [3].

2010 Writers: Matt Jackson, Bryan Berend, Dallin Kelson, Ethan Hewett, Gaurav Kandlikar, Neil Fitzgerald, Tony Leng, Matt Hart, Huma Zafar, Brice Russ, Charlie Rosenthal, Sandy Huang, Idrees Kahloon, Tanay Kothari

Editor: Andrew Hart

2011 Writers: Tanay Kothari, Colin McNamara, Brian McNamara, Lyndsay Harvey, Nathan Murphy, Ian McCloskey, Max Henkel, Miriam Nussbaum, Marko Manojlovic, Zach Foster, Ben Cole, Connie Prater, Haohang Xu, Abid Haseeb, Saad Sheikh, Jordan Hoffmann, and Nick Collins

Editor: Andrew Hart