N. Y. State Qualifications

These are the numbers you need to remember when you go to a tournament if you're thinking about getting a New York State qualification, or the equivalent thereof (i.e., the March championships). Our opinion of the management of the States tournament notwithstanding, it is one of the themes of this team that qualifying for States is one of the most solid measures of achievement for any participant, a recognition of the effort you've put in, and recognition for that effort among your peers. Remember that the tournament does not have to be in NY to be a qualifier.

LD tournaments with elimination rounds:
Winner only -- 9 or fewer participants in tournament
Finalists -- 13 participants
Semifinalists -- 27 participants
Quarterfinalists-- 67 participants
Octofinals -- 147 participants
Double octos -- 307 participants
In situations between the breaks, original seeding is factored in. As per the NYSFL web site:
Let's look at an example to show how the half-quals are awarded.
We have a tournament with 9 half-quals. The tournament breaks to octofinals. Obviously, everyone who goes on to quarter finals receives a half-qual. The question is, who among the non-advancing octofinalists gets the 9th half-qual.
Take the debaters who did not advance and rank them according to their ORIGINAL seed. The highest seed among the non-advancing octofinalists receives the half-qual. So, if the non-advancing octofinalists had the following seeds:
7, 8, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 32, the 7th seed gets the half-qual.

MHLs, IEs and Congress
1st -- 6-9 participants
2nd -- 10-13 participants
3rd -- 14-17 participants
4th -- 18-27 participants
5th -- 28-37 participants
6th -- 38-47 participants
The numbers continue along these lines. Since you know precisely your placement at a tournament, the vague "being any semifinalist is equivalent to placing 7th" is not true in IEs.