About us |

Yale Student Academic Competitions (YSAC), Yale’s quizbowl team, practices every Monday and Wednesday in Linsly-Chittenden Hall, Room 104, from 9:00 to 11:00 PM, and newcomers are always welcome.

Quizbowl is sort of like Jeopardy!: players use a buzzer system to buzz in and answer questions on a wide range of academic and pop culture-related topics. Quizbowl questions tend to cover subjects in more depth, however, and thankfully don’t require you to phrase your response in the form of a question. For more information on quizbowl, click here.

Yale’s A team has consistently been the top team in the region and among the best in the nation: 1st place at the prestigious ACF Nationals competition in 2011 and 2012 (2nd place 2013 and 2014), 1st place at NAQT’s Intercollegiate Championship tournament in 2013 (1st place division II in 2011; second place in 2014), and undergraduate champions at both nationals last year with current officers Grace Liu and Jacob Reed. Throughout the year, though, YSAC sends as many teams to each tournament as there is interest for, including teams of new(er) players and teams that play just for fun. We’d love to have you, even if you’re only interested in playing casually at just one tournament per year. Last year, YSAC members played as many as ten tournaments and as few as one.

In addition to attending tournaments, YSAC also hosts several events at both the college and high school level, most notably the Fall Academic Tournament (“FAcT”) for Connecticut-area high schools and the Bulldog High School Academic Tournament (“BHSAT”), one of the most prestigious high school quiz bowl events in the country. Yale’s house-written question set for BHSAT is consistently considered among the best-quality and most fun high school quiz bowl sets available each year.

YSAC is a great organization for both determined competitors and for people with a more casual interest. We don’t do tryouts, cuts, initiations, or inductions, and no previous quiz bowl experience is required to join. (In fact, some of our very best players never picked up a buzzer until college!) If you think you might be interested in broadening your academic horizons, showing off what you know, or hanging out with a group of really fun people for up to a few hours every week, YSAC is for you! Contact our current president, Grace Liu, at grace.liu@yale.edu for more information, or drop by practice to see what we’re about!