http://www.scholarscup.org/curriculum

I think part of a hesitancy of this board to embrace SCup comes from the fact that most of us come from an Academic Decathlon background and that humans by nature are conservative: we have trouble accepting the New.

This curriculum is different from USAD materials because it is open ended. There's room for debate here, which is part of the SCup competition, as most of us know.

Looking at the art curriculum, for example, there's an omission of content explicitly based upon fundamentals. Those can be assumed as one takes on the theme of the assembled works. By the way, for those disappointed at Versailles not being on this year's USAD list, it's on the 2008-2009 SCup curriculum. How 'bout them apples, huh?

The curriculum is free and you know it's from DemiDec, makers of Great Stuff ™. I'd like to see more folks here take a critical look at what's on offer here and, even if not competing in SCup, look into it anyway and see what value it has to offer. It's good stuff, and I'm going to do what I can to get it started at my school.

The science topic looks amazing; sustainable development is a big interest of mine right now, and also obviously relevant to current issues. Determining the best way politics and markets can work together towards a sustainable future is probably the most important challenge of our day. I'll definitely have to read those materials...and I mean really read, not just put on the endless list of things I should be reading.

For a brief time, I was a history major. I looked at the history materials and they are awesome! This is a great concept and I look forward to see many CA teams involved in SC

I think one of the coolest things about S Cup curriculum is that it has a pulse. The materials are very much relevant to the interest of the students. I mean, come on-- Serenity? The Reluctant Fundamentalist? Scholar's Cup definitely has an edge on USAD materials when it comes to readability and awesomeness. I have fun reading the DBQs students write; I can't imagine how boring the USAD essays must be to read....

Yeah I mean to be totally honest... USAD essays are, in all generality, not fun to write. If they arn't fun to write they can't be especially fun to read.

reading 20 essays on the novel and 10 essays on the super quiz that almost all say essentially the same thing... yeah, really tremendously boring. especially when you have to step back and try to separate them in your mind.

short version: the horror! the horror!

I'd rather read 30 USAD essays than read that book again

That book was amazing, ad Apocalypse Now is just as good, if not better.

SC really does have better materials, if only there was an easier way to compete.

I think my favorite part of the competition was writing the essay, actually. Having the option to integrate the documents/evidence is something I really enjoy doing in writing (who doesn't like factual evidence to back up their own thoughts?), and the TIME given was absolutely amazing, I could go through and make sure everything was written precisely the way I wanted it. I know I'm a pretty good writer, but with USAD essays, they just don't .. give enough time for me to make sure everything is perfectly clear. For SCup, I got to do that, and my score reflected it :]

How much time did you get?

I participated in SC last year. At first no one in my acadec class showed any interest in it. But in the end we gave in to my coach's incessant pleads to join. And let me just say, it was an awesome experience. It was really quite challenging to study a whole new set of curriculum after just having finished my acadec season. Even though my team didn't win we had to much fun and learned many great things. So for anyone out there who is debating whether or not to so SC, I say do it. And give it all youve got. Because trust me, the feeling that comes with watching other people walk away with a medal that "should have been yours" still sucks as much as it does in acadec.

You wrote a phenomenal essay, and you absolutely deserved your score.


Any ideas? What do you think is your biggest barrier to entry? We'd love to make the competition more available to people.

From my outsider point of view, Money is probably a common one. Most schools compete in acadec because it costs little or nothing to go to the entry-level competitions (maybe the cost of a bus and 1 night hotel at most), and a school usually only fields one team. With SC, any team that's not within a few hours of the site has to pony up plane fare for three (or four for the coach/sponsor). Multiply that times two or three teams and you've got a sizeable outlay just to go to the first competition. Qualify for international, and that's even more money...

I think it would work if you could get more regional competitions (say NY/DC area, Omaha/midwest, Texas/south , Arizona/West) with say, 6 teams from each going to the US finals, then the top 8 at finals go to World finals.

the best part of the SCup is clearly the debate and everybody knows it.

I haven't done it, but I'm pretty sure this is true, on the basis that it's a debate.

Having a competition in Omaha would help

The travel issue is hard. One massive difference between WSC and USAD is that our curriculum is free. USAD materials are very, very pricey, and most people buy several sets. Each student pays a nominal fee of about $50 to compete, which helps us cover incidentals such as food and printing. It costs more to move a single decathlon team of 9 plus coaches/chaperones if you look at the number of people alone. I think we are working on making more regional competitions available to large countries such as the US so that teams don't have to travel quite as far. While travel is expensive, I don't think money bars students from competing beyond that, especially because we can waive the registration fee when that would prevent a student or team from competing. Also, there is no need to qualify in order to compete at the world finals or any of our competitions this year. Some teams are going straight to the world finals instead of competing on a national level because they could afford only one trip not two. (Sorry, gotta defend my cause.)

I stick by my suggestion. Also, I don't think anyone would complain too hard if you charged a small fee for the curriculum per team. Hell just $10 or something would add up.

I understand where you are coming from, it's just that USAD already has a hierarchy set up in most states where a team might have to travel 4 hours at most to compete in rounds one through three, which makes it a bit more appealing to school districts. That's not to say SC can become that way, it's ust that USAD is more entrenched in most places. Of course, if you want to throw a regional in north texas, I'd be glad to offer my services to help make it happen.

Once we've got the schools to warrant it, I'm fairly certain we'll do our best to provide many more regional meets! We'd love to get more schools in Texas involved. Maybe you guys who already know about the program can bring it up to your friends? Word of mouth is a great resource.

I suppose I should try to convince some teams around here to do it, but I'm not sure if they'd be interested. Prep already competes in every academic competition known to man it seems. With the success that Burke has had in AD, maybe they could generate enough interest to field a SCup team too.

Definitely have to agree with that one! Debate is something that I'm much more comfortable doing, and so it's one part of the competition that I actually look forward to.

As I've said before, I would love to replace the interview event in Aca-Deca with a debate. I never found Decathlon interviews to be a very accurate assessment of ability at all, though perhaps I'll feel differently once I start applying for real jobs.

You guys should really try and do, like, a southern regional meet. There are several schools in Durham that would really benefit from some sort of academic competition like SCup -- the Durham school of Arts and Sciences strikes me as a great prospect. It's essentially a feeder school to top schools in the country. Very rigorous. And I don't think NC has ever fielded an Academic Decathlon team, period. So it would be something new. A chance to sort of expand beyond the USAD-determined set of states that they really push, you know? Just a thought. I love SCup study materials. They're really nice.

I hope someday I am not-poor enough to afford the travel. It sounds like it'd be super fun.

North Carolina usually does field a team at nationals, but they score very poorly.

Oh, whoops. Just looked. Wow. I have been focusing on the upper tier of scores rather than the lower tier, so I can see why I missed that. Daaaamn, NC, what is this. That sucks. No wonder nobody at Duke knows about NC AcaDec.

Actually, no NC team was at Nationals 2009. Montana also did not show.

One more reason to boost SCup.

I heard that the Prep team last year went to Japan just for fun? Also, from what I've seen, SCup looks like a competition Prep would be really good at.

It wasn't the team per se, but mostly people who took the class, our had our coach as an english teacher, and they went to china.

Monica captured it really well. Making the curriculum free keeps costs lower for teams, helping to compensate for travel - though it of course makes operations challenging for us! We'd love to have more regional meets as we develop the infrastructure. Local host sites, step forward.

What exactly do you need in a host site?

I had wanted to compete in the World Scholar's Cup last year but the competition was the same day as the PA Decathlon Regional Competition. Do any of you know when the WSC's competition will be this year? Does it have Regional Competitions as well?

The only "regional" competition that I'm aware of was optional this past year and was in AZ. Not sure about this upcoming year.

We held a regional competition in Arizona, but regional qualification is not necessary if you want to compete at the world finals. This year, the competition will take place in Singapore at Nanyang Girls School on June 13th an 14th. We'd love to have you!

Yeah, we just found out that none of our teams will be able to compete in Singapore. So for the second year in a row, I'm not going to internationals. It sucks!

Noooooo!!! I thought you guys were going to pair up with the Westwood competitors :-( Does that mean they're not going to make it, either?

Thanks! I wish the competition wasn't so far away though. Is the theme announced for 2010 yet? I checked their website and only see the bit about the 2009 stuff.

Not yet! More likely after the world finals, which are the weekend after next.

Any predictions? I looked at some of this year's stuff. Very interesting! I love how it goes along with some of the Decathlon stuff...not that I was really looking forward to studying Mexico anytime soon after Nationals were over.

I'm pulling for any theme that involves goats.

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