ACF Nationals

Last updated: March 22, 2021

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.

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2022 ACF Nationals

2022 ACF Nationals will be held on April 9–10, 2022, at the University of Minnesota, in Blegen Hall and Willey Hall on “West Bank.”

2022 ACF Nationals is head edited by John Lawrence. Will Alston, Stephen Eltinge, Stephen Liu, Eric Mukherjee, and Adam Silverman are editors.

Michael Kearney will be Tournament Director.

The field cap for the tournament will be 54 teams.

COVID-19 precautions

Attendees of ACF Nationals — whether players, staffers, or spectators — must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and submit proof to that effect. ACF’s definition of “fully vaccinated” will be the CDC’s definition on March 1, 2022, so players may be required to receive boosters if CDC guidelines decide it appropriate.

Qualifying for ACF Nationals

ACF Regionals serves as a qualifying tournament for ACF Nationals. ACF’s procedures for determining which teams have qualified for ACF Nationals are available here.

If an ACF Regionals host fails to play off or award Undergraduate and Division II titles, or an event precludes awarding Nationals bids normally, ACF will handle bids on a case-by-case basis.

Qualification changes for 2022

In 2022, ACF will allow online ACF Regionals sites to operate as full qualifiers for 2022 ACF Nationals, functioning identically to in-person sites. Winners of online sites and winners of the undergraduate championship at online sites (presuming at least four total undergraduate teams from at least two total schools are present) will earn automatic qualification to ACF Nationals, with all other participating teams being entered into the A-value list for at-large qualification.

Players at online ACF Regionals sites will be required to follow ACF’s new integrity policy for online play.

A-values

The A-values for qualification for 2022 ACF Nationals are located here. That page will also serve as a running field list of the teams attending 2022 ACF Nationals.

Teams that have accepted their bid can also now officially register for 2022 ACF Nationals with this form.

Packet submission

The editors of ACF Nationals are planning on writing 13 packets this year. Like the past three ACF Nationals, packet submission will be optional for ACF Nationals this year. The editors of ACF Nationals will work with teams interested in submitting to arrange packet submission, looking to get enough team submissions to make 10 total submitted packets.

Finalized tossups for 2022 ACF Nationals will be capped at 8 lines in 10-point Times New Roman. However, this cap does not apply to submissions; submitting teams are allowed and encouraged to submit longer tossups.

Like previous years, packet submission will not be mandatory, but we’re counting on teams capable of writing quality packets to work with us to ensure that we have enough submissions to edit the tournament. If we can’t be sure that we’ll have enough packets to make this work, we’ll consider other options.

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.

New this year: teams will be required to declare their intent to submit a packet for a particular deadline two weeks in advance in order to receive that deadline’s discount. This will enable the editors to properly forecast and plan workloads. Teams should fill out this form to declare their intent to submit a packet for a particular deadline.

Submission intent deadline Submission deadline Packet discount
January 2, 2022 January 16, 2016 −$100
February 6, 2022 February 20, 2016 −$50
February 27, 2022 March 13, 2016 −$25

All packet submission deadlines are at 11:59 p.m. Central Time. Packets must be submitted to nationals@acf-quizbowl.com. We will continue to offer an additional −$50 quality discount to any team that submits a polished packet with almost all questions usable with little to no editing.

Fees

Team entry fee or discount  
Base fee per team $325
Buzzers −$10 per functional buzzer system
Staffers −$100 per staffer with functional laptop. Staffers must register with ACF in advance.

Teams will owe half the registration fee if they drop from the field with less than four weeks to go before the tournament (after March 11) and the full registration fee if they drop from the field with less than two weeks to go before the tournament (after March 25).

Distribution

The submitted packet and final packet distributions for ACF Nationals are found here.

Eligibility

For information on who is eligible to play ACF tournaments, see ACF’s official Eligibility Rules.

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:

Dates of note

Event Date
ACF dates announced June 7, 2021
ACF Nationals announced August 13, 2021
Host bidding opened September 22, 2021
Host bidding closed October 24, 2021
Host site announced December 13, 2021
Registration opened February 9, 2022
Teams must accept bids by February 15, 2022
Registration closed not yet
ACF Nationals held April 9–10, 2022