Arin Parsa
| Arin Parsa | |
| |
| Noted subjects | History, Generalist |
| Middle school | Challenger Almaden (2017-) |
| Stats | HDWhite • NAQT |
General
Arin Parsa (7th, 2025) is an avid quiz bowl player. He is the founder and captain of the Challenger Almaden quiz bowl team since 5th grade in San Jose, California. He has led the team through 139 wins in games in NAQT MS circuit and CalCup High School Standard and Novice circuits. He also likes to compete in history, humanities, science, and academic competitions from NHBB and IAC.
Arin holds the national title for 2019 NAQT IPNCT MS champion, and his best in quiz bowl is 240 PPG against Bret Harte B in the MS-27 tournament in Northern California. He also holds the 6th grade national titles for the U.S Academic Bee & Bowl, the History Bee & Bowl, the Humanities Bee, and runner-up in the Science Bee.
Notable Achievements in NAQT
Arin made history with his performance at the 2018 MSNCT, as a 5th grader in his first year of quiz bowl, making the top five list of overall scorers. He led his team to a T-13 finish, another record breaking performance for a team primarily comprised of middle schoolers younger than 6th grade.
In the 2018-19 season, as a 6th grader, Arin went on to dominate the Northern California Quiz Bowl circuit, leading his team to win all six middle school tournaments in California (MS-27, 28, 29, and IS-178A, 180A, and 184A). Furthermore, Arin ventured into the HS CalCup circuit in Novice and Standard divisions, winning CalCup II in the HS Novice division, and CalCup III in the HS Standard division. On December 1st, 2018, Arin was named NAQT Player of the Week.
Arin set the highest PPG record for a middle schooler in 7th grade or below. His best was 240 PPG in a match against Bret Harte B on December 2nd, 2018, and as of September 5th, 2019, Arin holds NAQT’s third all-time best PPG across an entire tournament, after William Groger and Karsten Rynearson.
In April 2019, Arin won the 2019 Individual Player National Championship Tournament (IPNCT) in the middle school division by beating Rohan Ganeshan from Quest Academy, Chicago in a 185-70 result. In May 2019, Arin led his team to a 7-1 record in MSNCT prelims, and T-28 finish in finals after two back-to-back losses in playoffs to Daniel Wright Junior High from Chicago, and Stratford Sunnyvale A from California. He was the top scorer in 2019 MSNCT with a 138 PPG in prelims, second only to Shiva Oswal in 2018. On May 19, Arin was voted as the top middle school player in a MS Post-Nats Player Poll conducted by Conor Thomson.
In the 2019-2020 season so far, Arin led his team to win the four regional tournaments they attended (185A, MS-31, CalCup HS Standard 1 and 2) and was the highest scorer.
Notable Achievements in NHBB and IAC
Outside of NAQT, Arin plays NHBB and IAC tournaments for history, science, humanities, and academic bee and bowls playing solo. He won the National History Bee in 2018 (elementary) and 2019 (6th grade). At the 2018 International History Olympiad held in Berlin, Arin won bronze medals for the Scramble, which focused on the colonial history of Africa, and the Hexathlon. He also led California B along with BASIS Silicon Valley's Sasha Prakir to a fourth place finish after a last-question loss to Karsten Rynearson and Team New Yeticut.
In 2019, after winning history, science, and academic tournaments in sixth grade division in California in March, in a rare feat, Arin went on to sweep most of the awards in sixth grade division at the national level by a huge margin in June 2019. Arin won the U.S Academic Bee & Bowl, the National History Bee & Bowl, the National Humanities Bee, and placed second in the National Science Bee in his division. This was the second time a student won national titles in more than one subject. The first student to achieve this was Shiva Oswal in 2016.
Arin was given an honorable mention by David Madden, Director of NHBB and IAC, for his performance at the Varsity History Bowl in April 2019 held in Arlington for making the upper bracket in playing solo as a 6th grader against 11th and 12th graders. A highlight game for Arin was holding up against the reigning Varsity champion team, Fred Zhang and TJ, in a 250 to 310 loss.
In the 2020 regional season in CA so far, Arin has won middle school history bowl and Junior Varsity History Bee (B set), received second-highest scores in U.S History Exam, and qualified for National Science Bee.
Statistics
https://www.naqt.com/stats/player/index.jsp?contact_id=401036
Other
Arin learned about quiz bowl in 3rd grade, and thought quizbowlers had super powers when he first saw Jonchee Kao from Bellarmine College Preparatory and Omeed Askary from Valley Christian Junior High playing a match on Kron-4 TV in 2015. "How else can they know so much?", he wondered. Arin’s favorite moderator is Ms. Niki Peters! He was not happy when he lost to David Wright in the 2019 MSNCT playoffs, right when Ms. Peters was moderating!!!
Arin likes to lean across the table with knees on the chair when playing, if the moderator allows it. Well, at least until he is tall enough ...