ACF Nationals
Last updated: December 18, 2023
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
- 2024 ACF Nationals
- Qualifying for ACF Nationals
- Packet submission
- Fees
- Distribution
- Eligibility
- Past tournaments
2024 ACF Nationals
2024 ACF Nationals will be held on April 20-21, 2024 at Duke University.
2024 ACF Nationals is head edited by Nick Jensen. The subject editors are Jordan Brownstein, Jason Golfinos, Aseem Keyal, Eddie Kim, Joseph Krol, Stephen Liu, Grant Peet, Jonathen Settle, and Kevin Wang.
The tournament director will be Michael Kearney. Zac Bennett and Jacob Egol will be assistant tournament directors.
More details about dates, hosting, field size, and staffing will be available in the coming months.
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.
Packet submission
The editors of ACF Nationals are planning to write 12 editors’ packets and produce 12 packets from team submissions. Unlike recent years, packet submission for 2024 ACF Nationals will be mandatory. However, teams will only be required to submit half-packets. Teams should request a half-packet distribution by emailing nationals@acf-quizbowl.com.
Finalized tossups for 2024 ACF Nationals will be capped at 850 characters in 10 pt Times New Roman. Bonuses will be capped at 750 characters. However, this cap does not apply to submissions; submitting teams are allowed and encouraged to submit longer questions.
The packet deadlines:
| Packet discount | Submission deadline |
|---|---|
| -$75 (-$150 for a full packet) | Sunday, December 3 |
| -$50 (-$100 for a full packet) | Sunday, December 24 |
| -$25 (-$50 for a full packet) | Sunday, January 14 |
| -$0 (-$25 for a full packet) | Sunday, February 4 |
| +$25 | Sunday, February 25 |
| +$50 | Sunday, March 17 |
Later packet submissions will be charged $10/day late.
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 due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on the given day. Packets must be submitted 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.
Fees
| Team entry fee or discount | |
|---|---|
| Base fee per team | $350 |
| 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 ca. 40 minutes. |
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.
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: