I participated in the public competition a few years back with a few other classmates. We had a blast, but definitely underestimated the amount of time required to reach the upper echelon in the tournaments (finished middle of the pack). As a side benefit, we were actually able to convince our university to honor this class as a directed study and pick up a few credit hours as well.

I highly recommend this competition to anyone even remotely interested. You're at a disadvantage entering with no experience from previous years, but it's still a very worthwhile experience.