From March 30th – April 1st, 2023, College Raptor was a sponsor of the 5th annual U.S. Information Technology Collegiate Conference (USITCC) and played host to the Business Analytics competition portion of the conference.
What is USITCC?
USITCC is an annual conference that helps students showcase their IT skills, take part in IT-related competitions, and explore future potential careers. Produced by the Foundation for IT Education, the event organizers have decades of experience helping students advance their education and careers in IT!
Some of the competitions at this year’s USITCC were on Microsoft Office Solutions, Systems Analysis & Design, and Database Design, as well as Business Analytics.
College Raptor Sponsored the Business Analytics Competition
College Raptor has a history of being a part of the USITCC since 2018 – the beginning of the conference! In 2019, our organization was the host of the physical competition. In 2023, we hosted the Business Analytics contest on March 31st.
This year’s particular challenge was on a FAL project. Written by College Raptor’s Grant Cooper, the contest was judged by Grant as well as one of the founders of the organization, William Staib.
What Did the Contest Cover?
Teams in our contest were limited to 1 or 2 students. Those who were interested in participating were told they needed to meet the following criteria:
- The contestants must have some knowledge of predictive analytics, data mining, or machine learning techniques.
- The contestants must be able to use technology to read a relatively large dataset.
- Transform the variables as needed.
- Select the appropriate technology to approach the problem.
- Have foundational level knowledge of accounting, finance, economics, management, SQL, and quantitative methods.
Students were allowed to “use any software, including access to the Internet, to develop and implement their model.”
The contest was judged following this scale:
- 30% A vector of predictions for the test set. (to be used by the judges)
- 20% A justification explaining why the method/technique used is appropriate to the problem scenario.
- 20% A brief description of the method used
- 20% Inferential statistics about the data
- 10% Descriptive statistics about the data
Congratulations to Ashton Stoelk and Isaac McSorley From the University of Iowa!
The first-place winners of the USITCC Business Analytics Competition were students from the University of Iowa: Ashton Stoelk and Isaac McSorley! A big congratulations to you both!
Coming in second and third place were Shahmeen Razzak and Nicholas Robertson of Texas State University and Rajan Shukla and Nicholas Loke of Missouri State University.
We also had three honorable mentions:
- Ben Shabaz and Alex Conrad from the University of Iowa
- Ashish Sedai and Alexander Fuerst of Missouri State University
- Sam Downs of Georgia Gwinnett College
Want to learn more about the USITCC, especially for the next one in 2024? Head over to their website to learn more about the conference, future competitions, and additional information!
About College Raptor
College Raptor is the most evolved, accurate, and comprehensive college search site with tools to empower students, parents, counselors, and colleges with college planning. College Raptor is the only college search platform that enables students and families to discover quality, affordable college options based on personalized estimates of financial aid, scholarships, academic match, and acceptance odds at every 4-year college in the country. More than 25 million students and families have used College Raptor to find cost-effective, academically appropriate college options that prepare them for future careers. For more information, visit CollegeRaptor.com.
