World Scholar's Cup

World Scholar's Cup
Daniel Berdichevsky shows off an alpaca at the 2011 Jakarta Round
Type:	International Academic Program
Founded:	2006
Founder and Alpaca-In-Chief:	Daniel Berdichevsky
Headquarters:	Los Angeles, California
Managing Director:	Jeremy Chumley
Director of Social Stuff:	Burch Wang
Director of Curriculum:	Josephine Richstad
Website:	http://scholarscup.org

The World Scholar's Cup (abbreviated as WSC) is an international team academic program with students participating from over 50 countries. The competition was founded by DemiDec, in particular by Daniel Berdichevsky, DemiDec's president, in 2006. The World Scholar's Cup has attracted what it calls "a global community of future scholars and leaders", and promotes that it allows participants to "discover strengths and skills you never knew you had." It focuses on bringing students from different cultures together to discuss issues and ideas relevant to today and the future.

A team for the World Scholar's Cup is always composed of three students. The teams are usually made up of students from the same school, but mixed teams are allowed. Students have the option of forming "independent" teams that may include students from other schools or even other countries. Each team participates in the four standard, round events.

Teams may participate in any regional round. If teams are unable to attend a regional round, but would still like to participate in the Global Round, they may qualify for a wildcard berth.

To qualify for the annual Global Round, teams must do one of the following:

To qualify to the Tournament of Champions at Yale University, teams must:

There are both senior and junior divisions in the competition (outdated as of June 2017 with the Skittles Division). A student's age designates which division they may participate in. Students from the ages 8-11 participate in the Skittles Division, students that are below age 14 participate in the junior division, while students 15 and older participate in the senior division. A junior can participate in the senior division if he/she wishes to. In Regional Rounds, both divisions participate simultaneously, though juniors only compete against juniors and seniors against seniors. At the Global Round, the divisions are staggered, with the junior and Skittles divisions competing in each event one day ahead of the senior division. In most cases, the Skittles and junior Closing Ceremony is a day ahead of the senior Closing Ceremony.

At some places, there are one-day long Primary Rounds for students aged under-11 years, such as in the Hanoi Global Round, when Berdichevsky dubbed the Primary Round the Skittles Division.

Each World Scholar's Cup Regional Round consists of four main events: the Scholar's Challenge, Collaborative Writing, The Team Debate, and the Scholar's Bowl. In addition to these four main events, at select tournaments additional activities take place. These activities are both social and academic, and strive to solidify the community aspect of the World Scholar's Cup.

At the end of June, top teams from around the world come together for the Global Round. At the global round, community events such as a scavenger hunt (Scholar's Scavenge), a cultural fair (Scholar's Fair) and a dance (Scholar's Ball) are added alongside the four main events, further cultivating the sense of global community of the program.