Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-25316824-20160917214234/@comment-410526-20160918024133

HighCastle67 wrote: Wait, was nobody qualified before all the exchange students arrived.

If so, that's kinda dumb since you would have students doing nothing but taking up space for free that could be devoted to foreign participants at your acadamy. HighCastle67 wrote: Wait, was nobody qualified before all the exchange students arrived. We know Pyrrha wasn't qualified in Volume 2 from Glynda's comments after her match against CRDL. It stands to reason none of the other students from other Academies were qualified either.

Also, judging from the background characters' uniforms, the total number of students each Kingdom brought was far larger than the 32 teams (8 per Kingdom) we can assume were competing in the tournament.

It's not really dumb to bring extra students either. They're not just taking up space, they're also experiencing a huge cultural event. It's like bringing hopeful athletes to view the Olympics. That's a huge opportunity and I'm sure the top acadamies brought some students along just to spectate, even if they didn't qualify.