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Date: 13 Oct 2008 18:36:29
From: [email protected]
Subject: Scholarships at Tournaments
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I feel conflicted about the notion of college scholarships as awards
in tournaments, and I was wondering how other people feel on the
matter. The problem, which is by no means only theoretical, is that
you are offering an award which is worth a huge amount to one person
(who wants to attend the college in question), and zero to someone who
does not want to attend the college. If this were a tournament
explicitly for the scholarship, I would have no problem; if you don't
want to go to the school, don't enter the tournament! However, these
are often tied to other important high school events, such as the
state tournament (for Tennessee), or a national event (as in the Texas
scholarships), where a student might very much want the title but not
the scholarship.
I certainly do not want to criticize the intent of either the
scholarship donors or the organizers, but I have talked to people
involved in these events where the last round paired a player who
wanted the scholarship with another player who did not (in the case I
know of, one student was a particularly outstanding student, and had
scholarships offered by far more prestigious universities).
This is an serious moral dilemna for the player who does not want the
scholarship; the player knows that a loss will have an effect on the
life of the opponent, while it has a much smaller effect on the
player's own life.
Perhaps this effect might be mitigated if players could choose to opt
for a non-scholarship track or a scholarship track, with the
scholarship going to the highest score from a player who chose to
enter and play for the scholarship. I am not sure what the donors
would think of this, especially if they found that only a small
percentage were interested in the scholarship; they might also find
that it would not reflect well on the school if the only people who
were interested in the scholarship scored very low in the tournament.
Any opinions on the matter?
Jerry Spinrad
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Date: 15 Oct 2008 01:27:41
From: Kenneth Sloan
Subject: Re: Scholarships at Tournaments
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[email protected] wrote:
> I feel conflicted about the notion of college scholarships as awards
> in tournaments, and I was wondering how other people feel on the
> matter. The problem, which is by no means only theoretical, is that
> you are offering an award which is worth a huge amount to one person
> (who wants to attend the college in question), and zero to someone who
> does not want to attend the college. If this were a tournament
> explicitly for the scholarship, I would have no problem; if you don't
> want to go to the school, don't enter the tournament! However, these
> are often tied to other important high school events, such as the
> state tournament (for Tennessee), or a national event (as in the Texas
> scholarships), where a student might very much want the title but not
> the scholarship.
>
> I certainly do not want to criticize the intent of either the
> scholarship donors or the organizers, but I have talked to people
> involved in these events where the last round paired a player who
> wanted the scholarship with another player who did not (in the case I
> know of, one student was a particularly outstanding student, and had
> scholarships offered by far more prestigious universities).
>
> This is an serious moral dilemna for the player who does not want the
> scholarship; the player knows that a loss will have an effect on the
> life of the opponent, while it has a much smaller effect on the
> player's own life.
>
> Perhaps this effect might be mitigated if players could choose to opt
> for a non-scholarship track or a scholarship track, with the
> scholarship going to the highest score from a player who chose to
> enter and play for the scholarship. I am not sure what the donors
> would think of this, especially if they found that only a small
> percentage were interested in the scholarship; they might also find
> that it would not reflect well on the school if the only people who
> were interested in the scholarship scored very low in the tournament.
>
> Any opinions on the matter?
>
> Jerry Spinrad
My opinions:
a) scholarships are largely illusory. By this I mean that they aren't
actually worth anything. If a player anywhere near the top of the field
WANTS to go to the college in question, they *probably* qualify for any
number of scholarships - so this particular one doesn't improve things.
b) colleges offer these bogus scholarships as a way of advertising
either the college or the chess program at the college. As noted above,
it costs them essentially nothing
c) IF the scholarships were actually valid, there *is* a problem here -
we have the classic case of players in competition for a prize that some
of the players cannot "win" (that is, the prize is worthless to them).
This is a classic prescription for collusion and arranged games.
the fact that c) has not appeared to distort results (yet) is evidence
that a) is correct.
On the other hand, I *have* met chess parents who think the scholarships
are valuable. I think they are wrong, but there you have it.
--
Kenneth Sloan [email protected]
Computer and Information Sciences +1-205-932-2213
University of Alabama at Birmingham FAX +1-205-934-5473
Birmingham, AL 35294-1170 http://KennethRSloan.com/
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Date: 13 Oct 2008 22:49:35
From: Mike Murray
Subject: Re: Scholarships at Tournaments
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On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 18:36:29 -0700 (PDT),
"[email protected]" <[email protected] >
wrote:
>Any opinions on the matter?
I wonder if other non-cash awards that the winner can neither sell nor
transfer are ever awarded? I can't think of anything, but maybe
someone with more imagination can.
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