ACF Nationals
Last updated: February 1, 2025
ACF Nationals is the premier collegiate quizbowl national championship. For over 25 years, ACF Nationals has been the ultimate test of collegiate quizbowl teams’ skill on the hardest and biggest question set of the season.
Table of Contents
2025 ACF Nationals
2025 ACF Nationals will be held on April 19-20, 2025 at University of Maryland. The tournament director will be Zac Bennett. Logan Mathis and Kuleen Sasse will be assistant tournament directors.
Editors
2025 ACF Nationals is head edited by John Lawrence. The subject breakdown by editor is as follows:
| Editor | Subjects |
|---|---|
| Ganon Evans | Religion, Mythology |
| Halle Friedman | Visual Fine Arts |
| Matt Jackson | Social Science, Geography/Current Events, Other Academic |
| Rahul Keyal | European Literature, World Literature |
| John Lawrence | American Literature, British Literature, Auditory Fine Arts, Philosophy |
| Dan Ni | Other Misc. Science |
| Hari Parameswaran | History |
| Andrew Rout | Physics, Math |
| Shahar Schwartz | Biology, Chemistry |
Eligibility
Information on who is eligible to play ACF tournaments can be found here.
Qualification
Information on qualifying for ACF Nationals can be found here.
Fees
| Team entry fee or discount | |
|---|---|
| Base fee per team | $370 |
| Buzzer discount | -$20 per functioning buzzer system (with eight functioning buzzers). Please note that the buzzer discount will be revoked, and a further penalty of $10 assessed, for buzzers that are non-functional upon arriving to ACF Nationals. |
| Staffer discount | -$100 for each staffer capable of reading a round in roughly 40 minutes. |
| Packet Submission Discount | listed below |
Teams will owe half the registration fee if they drop from the field with less than four weeks to go before the tournament and the full registration fee if they drop from the field with less than two weeks to go before the tournament.
Packet Submission
Packet submission for 2025 ACF Nationals will be mandatory. Teams will only be required to submit half-packets - however, they may still submit a full packet for a larger discount if they so choose. Teams should request a half-packet distribution by emailing nationals@acf-quizbowl.com. Please note that you should send an email requesting a distribution even if you plan to submit a full packet so that you receive instructions on categories and submission formatting.
This year, the editors of ACF Nationals are planning to write 13 editors’ packets and produce 10 packets from team submissions.
The submission deadlines are:
| Discount | Submission Date |
|---|---|
| -$75 discount (-$150 for full packet) | Sunday, December 8th |
| -$50 discount (-$100 for full packet) | Sunday, December 29th |
| -$25 discount (-$50 for full packet) | Sunday, January 19th |
| $0 discount (-$25 for full packet) | Sunday, February 9th |
| +$25 penalty | Sunday, March 2nd |
| +$50 penalty | Sunday, March 23rd |
Additionally, if you submit a packet before registering for the tournament and subsequently do not attend ACF Nationals, whether because you do not qualify or because you choose not to attend, that packet can still be used for ACF Nationals. The discount the packet would have earned will roll over to the next ACF tournament that the school sends a team to. If the discount is greater than $70 (ACF’s share of tournament fees), it can be spread among multiple teams from the same school, or the difference between $70 and the amount of the discount can be rolled over to a further tournament. Rolling over a discount does not preclude submitting a packet for the next ACF tournament, should that be required.
All packet submission deadlines are at 11:59 P.M. Eastern on the given day to nationals@acf-quizbowl.com. Quality discounts may be awarded for packets that have a substantial number of questions that are usable with less editing. Quality discounts may be larger or smaller depending on the number of such questions.
The preliminary field cap for 2025 Nationals is 48 teams. More details about field size and staffing will be provided in the coming months.
Past tournaments
Sample questions from previous iterations of ACF Nationals are on the Collegiate Quizbowl Packet Archive.
Announcements and information about previous iterations of ACF Nationals are archived below: