I realized that there was the whole, crazy world of competitive children's chess! Most of the kids were Chinese or Indian. After each match, either their parents or their chess coaches were screaming at the kids in Hindi, Chinese, whatever!! It was really horrible.
I felt like telling them that it was unlikely that their child would get to Harvard on a chess scholarship!!
The yelling in San Francisco is a bit surprising given that California is not very competitive in chess on a per-capita basis. I have been to chess nationals a couple of times and never witnessed any yelling.
Your Harvard comment is correct only in the sense that Harvard provides financial aid primarily on need. However, I live in the Boston area and know many Harvard and MIT grads that say one of reasons that they were accepted was due to their strength in chess. My niece's roommate in Yale said the same thing.
