2020-21 Science Olympiad Midseason Poll

[SciolyMaster]

[farmerjoe279]

I just don't think either MO team is top 25 until they prove they are to be honest. Pembroke hasn't proved it yet with a poor showing at Uchic, and Ladue hasn't competed much (if at all?) I think if this is goijg by a 1 team/state rule Ladue would certainly be getting votes.

Absolutely no bias at all, but MO just got an influx of OP div b people (LMS got 11th at the latest div b nationals) so I think we are top 25. *knock on wood*
Again, absolutely no bias at all... please dont look at my profile

I looked at your profile, what do I do now?

All jokes aside, I really don't think lack of competitions should doom a school (farmerjoe279 is 100% correct above).

Don't reveal the secret...

Also, there are multiple reasons why school's may not participate in invitationals. Cost, time, etc. And Ladue has only recently participated in invitationals (mainly uchicago), but they usually are a T25 team at nationals. The div b team has never participated in an inv. (they were supposed to a few years ago but it snowed: was it a sign?) but they do pretty well for a missouri team.

[pb5754]

Absolutely no bias at all, but MO just got an influx of OP div b people (LMS got 11th at the latest div b nationals) so I think we are top 25. *knock on wood*
Again, absolutely no bias at all... please dont look at my profile

I looked at your profile, what do I do now?

All jokes aside, I really don't think lack of competitions should doom a school (farmerjoe279 is 100% correct above).

Don't reveal the secret...

Also, there are multiple reasons why school's may not participate in invitationals. Cost, time, etc. And Ladue has only recently participated in invitationals (mainly uchicago), but they usually are a T25 team at nationals. The div b team has never participated in an inv. (they were supposed to a few years ago but it snowed: was it a sign?) but they do pretty well for a missouri team.

this poll isnt for nats predictions. ladue, or whatever the mo team will be, is definitely a t25 nats team. are they still a t25 team when you consider every single team in the country? i honestly dont think so.

that being said, by not attending any invies, ladue (1) is a riskier team to include, because you don't really have any data to go off of, and (2) has lower name recognition. most people will just go off of this years invies and past nats results to make predictions. thus, northville and columbia are unreasonably high and wwps is somewhat low. ladue hasnt been to nats since 2017 and doesnt do invies, so they naturally will be underrated.

[SciolyMaster]

1. The poll didn't specify whether or not it was for "nats predictions," so I'm pretty sure at least some people were ranking teams based on predicted nats performance.
2. The fact that "name-brand" teams that attend tons of invitationals got ranked so disproportionately high really goes to show how unreliable and biased polls like these are.
3. Why would a team being "risky" to rank be a problem? Isn't the entire point of a poll to bring attention to teams that community members think are good?

[SciolyMaster]

I know this discussion isn't particularly productive, but I just want to remind people not to take the opinions of 12 respondents ranking teams they can't possibly all be familiar with, from the results of online invitationals whose participation was far from universal, as definitive to any degree.

[sciolyperson1]

For a less-opinion based ranking, see viewtopic.php?f=334&t=20014

[pb5754]

1. The poll didn't specify whether or not it was for "nats predictions," so I'm pretty sure at least some people were ranking teams based on predicted nats performance.
2. The fact that "name-brand" teams that attend tons of invitationals got ranked so disproportionately high really goes to show how unreliable and biased polls like these are.
3. Why would a team being "risky" to rank be a problem? Isn't the entire point of a poll to bring attention to teams that community members think are good?

1. clearly not nats predictions:

enter your Top 25 Division B and/or C teams regardless of state (so there can be more than 2 teams per state if that is what you decide to put as your response).

2/3. my point is that if you don't have any data points, it isnt really possible to say how good a team is (and past years results are not very good this year - see boca raton, columbia, and northville, to name just a few underperforming teams). for a team with a lot of data points, on the other hand, it's much easier to say "i think team X is good" because you have the evidence to back it up.

I know this discussion isn't particularly productive, but I just want to remind people not to take the opinions of 12 respondents ranking teams they can't possibly all be familiar with, from the results of online invitationals whose participation was far from universal, as definitive to any degree.

agreed.

For a less-opinion based ranking, see viewtopic.php?f=334&t=20014

lol i mean this won't even rank teams that don't attend invies at all

[EwwPhysics]

The purpose of this poll is not to determine the top 25 teams in the nation. It is to determine what people on the forums think the top 25 teams are. I agree with what has been posted here; many rankings seem to be far from what I think they should be based on invite placements this year.

For a less-opinion based ranking, see viewtopic.php?f=334&t=20014

We cannot compare those rankings to these ones in the way that you seem to be suggesting (unless I am misinterpreting?) because they are measuring entirely different things. Both metrics are interesting to me and I am also intrigued by the differences between them. Let's not turn this into a contest though

[sciolyperson1]

The purpose of this poll is not to determine the top 25 teams in the nation. It is to determine what people on the forums think the top 25 teams are. I agree with what has been posted here; many rankings seem to be far from what I think they should be based on invite placements this year.

For a less-opinion based ranking, see viewtopic.php?f=334&t=20014

We cannot compare those rankings to these ones in the way that you seem to be suggesting (unless I am misinterpreting?) because they are measuring entirely different things. Both metrics are interesting to me and I am also intrigued by the differences between them. Let's not turn this into a contest though

I think the use of opinionated/completely subjective polls defeats the purpose of polls in the first place. It may be interesting to see what teams people think are good, but the metric is completely inaccurate and has no methodology and the results should be taken as a grain of salt.

As stated in the original post, we're "Top 25 Division B and/or C teams regardless of state", and I can't find a single person who can rank every team without heavy outside bias from the people I know or teams that I've interacted with.

I don't believe there's any contest nor did intend there to be (all rankings, including the spreadsheet are all arbitrary)*, I just believe that most polls (and predictions) are based off of only historical placements and almost never accurate. The two times I've ran prediction contests (BEARSO Superscore predictions and MIT Fantasy), Troy was predicted first in both of them - but did not win superscore at BEARSO or MIT. These polls are really just "I know someone from this team" or "my friend does x event at x competition".

It's obviously a great tradition, but it's another reason why I did not participate in the polls this year; arbitrarily selecting 25 teams doesn't feel fun to me.

*I've previously added a small note at the bottom of our ranking spreadsheet for this very reason. It states:
These rankings, while mathematically objective in nature, are by no means official. Some of the criterion and weights are subjective based on how we designed the algorithm. Do not take these rankings as fact, and don't get too caught up in them! This was more an interesting way to visualize data for us.

[Godspeed]

I meant this poll initially (like 2 years ago lol) as a way to showcase teams that potentially were good enough to be in the Top 25 in the nation but couldn't show that fact because they were in the same state as a team that always made nationals. I didn't mean this as an end-all for predictions or even proper team analysis; I recognize the fact that this poll isn't perfect, and it isn't meant to be perfect. The poll was supposed to be a fun exercise just to be able to see how teams fared with each other. There are two problems. 1. It's really difficult to properly gauge other regions if you're not used to teams in those regions. It's why people overrate teams from their own regions and underrate teams from other regions. 2. Not all teams go to the same invites/invites at all, so it's hard to tell where to put teams based on current results. Therefore, sometimes you have to resort to looking back at past results as a way to figure out trends in performance (which ofc won't be perfect since not every year's the same)