The National Vocabulary Championship (NVC) was the first-ever U.S.-wide vocabulary competition for high school students created by GSN, in association with The Princeton Review. Thirty thousand high school students from across the United States participated in the inaugural year (2006-2007).
The NVC aimed to inspire students to expand their vocabularies and narrow the achievement gap. The program offered free educational resources, created spirited competition through testing and game play, and awarded more than $100,000 annually in college tuition and other prizes.
Fifty finalists nationally received a trip to the NVC Finals, where they competed to win $40,000 toward college tuition in the form of a 529 plan and to be crowned the National Vocabulary Champion.
The host of the National Vocabulary Championship was GSN host Dylan Lane.
The NVC was discontinued after the 2007–2008 academic and competition year due to changes in GSN policy and administration.
How to Compete
The NVC was open to eligible high school students in the United States between the ages of 13 and 19 years old and in grades 9–12. Home-schooled students were also eligible to compete.
There were two ways to enter the competition:
Eligible students at participating schools in eight local markets could qualify to participate in a Citywide Championship for a chance to win $5,000 toward college tuition and other prizes, as well as a trip to the national finals.
Eligible students nationwide could also participate through a National Qualifying Competition via on-line and regional exams offered by The Princeton Review for a chance to compete in the NVC Finals.
2007-2008 Citywide Championships
Eight U.S. cities across the country were chosen each year to host Citywide Championship events. Eligible students who wanted to compete in one of the local Citywide Championships had to attend a participating high school, register with the designated NVC coach at their school, and take the NVC in-school qualifying exam. All public and private high schools within these markets and their surrounding areas were invited to participate and encourage their students to compete. Approximately 100 top scorers per market qualified to compete in each Citywide Championship, where one winner received $5,000 toward college tuition and other prizes as well as a trip to the national finals.
Below is a list of cities that the NVC visited in 2007-2008:
Sacramento: Thursday, November 15 -- WINNER: Yvonne Lin (Sophomore)
Nashville: Tuesday, November 27 -- WINNER: Brian Swenson (Junior)
St. Louis: Thursday, November 29 -- WINNER: Rajiv Tarigopula (Sophomore)
Detroit: Monday, December 3 -- WINNER: Steven Banks (Senior)
Northeast Ohio: Thursday, December 6 -- WINNER: Joel Fichter (Senior)
New York: Monday, December 10 -- WINNER: Rebecca Maxfield (Junior)
Pittsburgh: Monday, January 14 -- WINNER: John Oxenreiter (Senior)
Philadelphia: Thursday, January 17 -- WINNER: Lauren Bezjak (Junior)
National Qualifying Competition
Eligible high school students who did not attend a participating school (listed under Citywide Championship) or who did not wish to take the in-school qualifying exam could compete in the National Qualifying Competition by following the below steps: 1) The NVC offered an online national qualifying exam during November 2007 at winwithwords.com. For months leading up to the online exam, study tools and study modules were available at winwithwords.com Or: 2) Top-scoring students on the online national qualifying exam had an opportunity to advance to the regional exams, which took place at designated The Princeton Review locations across the country. Forty-two top scorers from the National Qualifying Competition joined the eight citywide champions at the national finals.
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quiz bowl tournament-organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels. NAQT operates out of Shawnee, Kansas and Minneapolis–Saint Paul.
Hunter College High School is an academic magnet secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill section of the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered and funded by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY) and no tuition is charged. According to Hunter, its 1,200 “students represent the top one-quarter of 1% of students in New York City, based on test scores."
A cram school is a specialized school that trains its students to achieve particular goals, most commonly to pass the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. The English name is derived from the slang term cramming, meaning to study hard or to study a large amount of material in a short period of time. The word "crammer" may be used to refer to the school or to an individual teacher who assists a student in cramming.
Science Olympiad is an American team competition in which students compete in 23 events pertaining to various fields of science, including earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Over 7,800 middle school and high school teams from 50 U.S. states compete each year. U.S. territories do not compete; however, since 2012 high school teams from Japan have competed at the national tournament as unranked guests.
Apponequet Regional High School, located at 100 Howland Road in Lakeville, Massachusetts opened September 21, 1959. Apponequet serves secondary academic education students from the towns of Freetown, and Lakeville. It is the only high school within the Freetown-Lakeville Regional School District.
The National Merit Scholarship Program is a United States academic scholarship competition for recognition and university scholarships. The program is managed by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC), a privately funded not-for-profit organization based in Evanston, Illinois. The program began in 1955.
Rowing is the oldest intercollegiate sport in the United States. The first intercollegiate race was a contest between Yale and Harvard in 1852. In the 2018–19 school year, there were 2,340 male and 7,294 female collegiate rowers in Divisions I, II and III, according to the NCAA. The sport has grown since the first NCAA statistics were compiled for the 1981–82 school year, which reflected 2,053 male and 1,187 female collegiate rowers in the three divisions. Some concern has been raised that some recent female numbers are inflated by non-competing novices.
Wachusett Regional High School is located in Holden, Massachusetts, United States and services the Wachusett Regional School District. Founded in 1955, WRSD comprises Holden, Paxton, Princeton, Rutland, and Sterling. William Beando was appointed principal as of July 1, 2007, succeeding the one year interim service of longtime principal Hal Lane, who had retired in 1993. The assistant principals are Rebecca Demarco, Josue Delgado, Victoria DeSimone, and Michael Pratt.
Rufus King International High School, or Rufus King, is a public magnet high school located on the north side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, part of the Milwaukee Public Schools district. The school is ranked the 1,658th best public high school in the country by U.S. News & World Report, making it the 42nd best performing public high school in the state of Wisconsin. The school offers the International Baccalaureate curriculum.
West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South, commonly referred to locally as South, is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in the Princeton Junction section of West Windsor in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, serving students in ninth through twelfth grades. The school is part of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District, a regional school district serving students from West Windsor and from Plainsboro Township. It is one of two high schools in the district, the other being West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North.
Red Wing High School is a liberal arts, public high school located in the Mississippi River Valley, 50 miles southeast of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area, United States. The school is part of the Red Wing Independent School District and serves as the high school for Red Wing, Minnesota and its surrounding communities.
Catholic Memorial (CM) is an all-boys college preparatory school located in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and is administered by the Congregation of Christian Brothers.
Oxford Falls Grammar School (OFG) is an independent Christian co-educational primary and secondary school, located in Oxford Falls on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Baruch College Campus High School (BCCHS) is a public high school located in Kips Bay in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. BCCHS is renowned for its high academic standards, advisory program and perfect graduation rate.
Keystone School, generally called Keystone, is a co-educational independent private school for students from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade, located in the Monte Vista Historic District in Midtown San Antonio, Texas, USA. The greater Keystone School consists of the Little School of Keystone, serving PK-3 and PK-4 students, Lower School, serving kindergarten through fourth-grade students, the Middle School, serving fifth- through eighth-grade students, and the Upper School, consisting of the ninth through twelfth grades. Keystone is regarded as one of the most academically competitive schools in the United States and has been acclaimed for its academic performance. It has been placed as one of the best private high schools in America by the Washington Post multiple times and ranked #1 in 2015.
Topsail High School is a High School located in the unincorporated town of Hampstead, North Carolina. It is part of Pender County Schools. Its current interim principal is Dr. Larry Obeda. Dr. Obeda succeeds the role of Mr. Christopher Madden.
Clearview Regional High School is a regional public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades from Harrison Township and Mantua Township, two communities in Gloucester County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as part of the Clearview Regional High School District.
The Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (COMC) is an annual mathematics competition held in Canada during the month of October. This competition is run by the Canadian Mathematical Society. Students who score exceptionally well on this competition are selected to participate in the Canadian Mathematical Olympiad.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
