This is not mandatory; don t rearrange your schedule or accept inconvenience to adhere to it. Howeve

NAQT is pleased cross country inns to announce that its 2014 High School National Championship Tournament will be held at the Hyatt Regency O Hare hotel on May 30 June 1, 2014. This is the same hotel that hosted the tournament in 2009 and 2010.
Note that NAQT also runs a Small School National Championship cross country inns Tournament for which some high schools are eligible. Please make sure you are looking at information for the proper tournament; this page concerns the HSNCT, which is NAQT s overall championship for all high schools.
Teams will check in on Friday, May 30, and have the opportunity to meet each other and play practice matches on official NAQT questions from previous years. The tournament s preliminary games will take place on Saturday, cross country inns and the playoff games will take place on Sunday. Teams may stay through Monday (or longer!) to explore Chicago at the discounted hotel rates negotiated by NAQT. Teams that cannot arrive on Friday cross country inns night will have a chance to check in on Saturday morning (if they notify NAQT of the situation in advance).
NAQT will be operating an Information Desk throughout the tournament cross country inns in the main lobby of the hotel. The Information Desk will be in contact with all control rooms and the stat room throughout the day.
Schools qualify to send teams to the HSNCT through their performance at NAQT invitational events and NAQT State Championships held throughout the year. Teams may also request wildcard invitations beginning on February 1, 2014. Qualified teams may now register online . The field for the 2014 HSNCT is currently full; qualified teams may join the waitlist .
The precise format will be determined by the final size of the field. Teams are guaranteed ten preliminary matches on Saturday. The playoffs will take place on Sunday. The format will likely be similar to last year s in which 256 teams played 10 preliminary games (over the course of 16 rounds) on Saturday and every team with a winning record advanced to elimination (10 rounds) playoffs on Sunday.
Teams are guaranteed exactly ten preliminary matches on Saturday. Those matches will be determined by power-matching, so that teams with similar records will be playing each other in every round. Every team with a winning record cross country inns (6-4 or better) will advance to the playoffs. The elimination playoffs will be held on Sunday; teams that finished Saturday 7-3 or better can lose twice before being eliminated; teams that finished 6-4 on Saturday will be eliminated after a single loss.
A total of 16 rounds will be played on Saturday, so each team will have exactly 6 byes. Either 9 or 10 rounds will be played on Sunday, depending on whether the champion finishes with a playoff cross country inns loss or not.
All playoff cross country inns teams must pick up their playoff cards at the Information Desk between 7:00 and 8:15 a.m. on Sunday. The first-round Sunday pairings and an overall bracket will be posted at the Information Desk by 7:00 a.m.
Teams that do not qualify for the playoffs are encouraged to return on Sunday to play against any other teams they want (or to mix-and-match from across the country) on the playoff cross country inns questions. These consolation rounds will be held in various game rooms of the hotel and will be moderated by NAQT staff and other volunteers. Please note that all students, even alternates or observers, are welcome to take part. Teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs may also take part.
Mini-tournaments will be three-, four-, or five-round power-matched events. These will run relatively efficiently, but they involve a commitment to stay for all of the rounds . Teams can sign up for these starting Saturday evening in the Conference Center (Lobby Level). Teams can also sign up Sunday morning, but the berths will be first-come, first-served, so teams that really cross country inns care about getting a spot in one of the larger events should make a point of signing up on Saturday evening.
Ad hoc matches cross country inns involve cross country inns no commitment, but they will take longer to organize as available cross country inns teams will be manually paired against each other as rooms, packets, and readers become available. If you only want one or two additional games, you want to go for this option. Teams may also play ad hoc matches after they are eliminated from the playoffs or after their mini-tournament finishes.
The 200-team tournament field is now full (counting spots reserved for state champions ). NAQT will continue to accept teams for a waitlist and will notify them promptly if a spot opens up. Please feel free to contact NAQT for more information about the likelihood of a waitlist spot making it into the field.
The registration fee is $595 per team if payment is received on or before cross country inns April 30, 2014. The fee is $615 per team on or after May 1. Schools whose first qualifying event occurred after April 4, 2014, have until May 5 to register at the lower rate. The deadline to accept an invitation is May 24, or when the field fills, whichever comes first.
The field has historically filled; cross country inns qualifying for the tournament does not guarantee a spot in the field, it merely enables your team to register for one of the spots. Once you have qualified, you should register as soon as you can to ensure cross country inns your team a berth in the tournament. The field for the 2013 HSNCT filled around April 1 (though a number of teams were promoted from the waitlist after that).
cross country inns Teams that cancel on or after April 12, 2014, will be liable for one-tenth of the base registration fee. Teams that cancel on or after April 26, 2014, will be liable for one-half of the base registration fee. Those cancellation-fee deadlines notwithstanding, teams that register after April 5, 2014, will have a one-week grace period cross country inns after they register to cancel with no penalty.
Teams bringing a working lockout system to the tournament will be eligible for a $40 discount on the registration fee. Each team may claim up to two such discounts. Lockout systems will be tested at check-in, and those that don t have at least eight functioning buzzers will be denied the discount. NAQT will only award the discount for lockout systems that it can keep from check-in until the Sunday lunch break. If a team anticipates leaving before that, we would prefer to use (and discount) a different system to avoid inconveniencing that team and ourselves.
Teams may supply one or more qualified staffers for the tournament to earn discounts on their registration fees. Teams will receive cross country inns a $50 discount cross country inns for each staffer on Saturday and a $50 discount for each staffer on Sunday (for a total of $100 if the staffer works both days). Team staffers may be assigned as scorekeepers, control room staff, scoresheet checkers, or other roles at NAQT s discretion; they will not have a chance to watch their team s matches. The transportation, lodging, and all other expenses of team-supplied staffers will be borne by the team, not by NAQT . In addition, a team claiming this discount must still have at least one adult coach/chaperone with each team at all matches.
All team staffers must complete a short online training cross country inns course (approximately 1 hour) provided by NAQT to receive the discount. This training must be completed by May 17 to receive the discount. Staffers that fail the training will be able to take it again; staffers cross country inns that do not complete the training will lose their school s discount (and potentially be subject to the staffer cancellation penalty). Team staffers who feel that the training requirement should be waived for them should e-mail hsnct@naqt.com with that request.
In addition cross country inns to the above "trained" positions, NAQT needs a limited number of untrained "runners." These positions are Saturday-only, and they will earn their team a $50 discount. Runner positions are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Teams wishing to supply a runner must make this request cross country inns on their registration and receive confirmation from NAQT; otherwise, all registered staff members must complete the online training to receive the discount.
A team may supply two different people to earn a single staff discount for Saturday; cross country inns in such a case one must work all of the pre-lunch rounds and another all of the post-lunch rounds. Such an arrangement would earn a total discount of $50 for the two staffers work on Saturday.
In addition cross country inns to earning discounts by bringing staffers to the HSNCT itself, schools may earn discounts on their HSNCT registration cross country inns by staffing NAQT s other national championships: the CCCT (completed), ICT (completed), SSNCT (Minneapolis), and MSNCT (Atlanta) according cross country inns to the experimental cross-tournament discount program.
Every competing school will receive cross country inns a complete copy of the question set used at this tournament. Please note that teams that do not pick up their questions at the tournament itself will be charged a shipping fee ($10) by NAQT to mail them. Questions will not be distributed until the end of the tournament.
NAQT will be checking teams in, disbursing information folders, answering questions, and handling outstanding administrative matters between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on Friday, May 30. When teams arrive at the hotel on Friday cross country inns night, one coach or chaperone should go to the check-in area. That representative will receive a folder containing a copy of the official rules, the schedule for the tournament, and information on local attractions. Team members are encouraged to take advantage of the social and practice opportunities on Friday night.
This is not mandatory; don t rearrange your schedule or accept inconvenience to adhere to it. However, if you are planning to be at the hotel all evening anyway, please come at the appropriate time to reduce the total time spent waiting.
NAQT would greatly appreciate it if teams that choose to check in later still bring their lockout systems to the check-in desk around cross country inns 6:00 p.m. so we can use them for scrimmage rounds. In the past few years we haven t been able to open up scrimmage rounds as quickly as we would have liked due to a lack of buzzers.
Teams that don t arrive at the hotel until Sa