Columbia Cup

The Columbia University Quiz Bowl team is pleased to announce the Columbia Fall Tournament, which will be held on November 16th, 2019, in Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall. Along with our spring tournament on March 7th, 2020, this tournament is part of the fifth annual Columbia Cup series of tournaments hosted at Columbia University. More information about the Columbia Cup, as well as a copy of this announcement and further details about the tournament, can be found on the Columbia Cup website.

Nationals: Teams that finish in the top 7 of the National Division will qualify for HSNCT, sponsored by NAQT, which will be held in Atlanta, GA on May 22nd-24th, 2020. We are seeking qualification for PACE’s National Scholastic Championship and will update if we receive it.

Questions: The questions for this will come from NAQT’s 2019 Small School National Championship Tournament (SSNCT). Please note that you cannot play this tournament if you have played SSNCT in 2019.

Tournament format: Morning check-in for this tournament will run from 8:00 to 8:45 AM. The introductory meeting will then follow, and the first round will start as soon as possible afterwards. All teams will be guaranteed at least 8 or 9 matches, depending on the final number of teams attending. Most teams should be done at around 4:00 to 4:30 PM. 

Tournament Division: We will be dividing all tournaments in the Columbia Cup series into a National division, for teams with highly experienced and competitive players, and a Standard division, for all other teams. Please note that this is not a Varsity/JV split – you are encouraged to register varsity teams in the Standard division if you feel like that will be a better fit for them. For now, we are capping the National division at 18 teams and the Standard division at 24 teams, though the exact numbers may change if demand for one is much higher than the demand for the other.

Teams: Each school may register as many teams as they would like in either division or in both divisions. Each team’s roster may contain no more than six players, four of which will be playing at any given time during a game. You are encouraged to register novice and JV teams as well in the Standard division. In addition, we encourage schools to register additional teams instead of putting alternates as 5th or 6th players on existing teams. We reserve the right to change a team’s division. For example, we will ask a team with a nationals all-star player in the Standard division to join the National division instead.

Registration: We will post the link to registration HERE when it opens on September 23rd, 2019. We will email you to confirm your registration promptly. Please note that registration for this tournament will not open until September 23rd, 2019 and will close on November 8th, 2019. Before registration opens, we encourage you to gauge the availability of the students on your team, so that you know how many teams to register once registration opens. 

In addition, to ensure that as many schools are able to enter the field at once, we will allow teams to initially enter one team into each division (a maximum of 2 teams- one Nationals, one Standard- per school). The rest of the teams will be placed on a waitlist in order of registration. Teams on this waitlist will be entered into the field on October 7th, 2019.

When registering teams for the Columbia Fall Tournament, you can also opt to register some or all of those teams for the entire series of tournaments in the Columbia Cup. Doing so will save you at least $20 per team, as compared to registering those teams for each tournament separately. However, this discount can be received only when registering for Columbia Fall Tournament.

Tournament fees and discounts: Please see our fees, discounts, and payments page for information on tournament fees.

Please note: In addition, in the interest of fairness towards attending and waitlisted teams, we are now instituting a drop policy. Drops on or after 11/9 will incur a fee of $35/team. Drops on or after 11/14 will be liable for the entire registration fee. These fees may be waived in specific emergency situations at the discretion of the TD. Please make sure you finalize your rosters accordingly. If there are any issues that may impede your attendance at the tournament, please let us know and we will do our best to accomodate you. By registering for the tournament, you indicate that you have read and understood this policy.

All entry and registration fees must be paid either in advance or during morning check-in. If you are registering teams for all tournaments in the Columbia Cup series, the entire registration fee must be received by the morning of the Columbia Fall Tournament. If the upfront cost for registering for the Columbia Cup is a burden for your team, please let us know and we can offer financial assistance.

If you are paying by check, please make it payable to “Columbia University,” with “Quiz Bowl” on the memo line. We will also accept cash on the day of the tournament. If you are mailing a check in advance, we recommend that it be sent no later than two weeks before the tournament, and the check should be mailed to:

Julia Tong

P.O. 5375 Altschul

New York, NY 10027

We wish you the best of luck this upcoming season, and hope to see you at our Morningside Heights campus on November 16th! If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at quizbowl@columbia.edu.