Hi,
I hadn't heard of this but looked it up and found an entry on Wikipedia that included the following:
"The USAD requires a diversity of achievement within each team; teams must have students who fall into three categories determined by GPA. The Honors category is composed of students with GPAs between 3.75 and 4.0. The Scholastic category consists of students with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.74. The final group, the Varsity category, contains students whose GPA ranges from 0.00 to 2.99. USAD uses a modified GPA scale in which performance-based classes such as music, art or physical education are omitted from the GPA calculation. A grade counts for face value regardless of whether it is from an advanced placement, honors, regular or remedial class. An A is counted as a 4.0, a B as a 3.0, a C as a 2.0, a D as a 1.0, and a F as a 0. Only final grades taken from the previous two complete school years are used to calculate GPA.[43]
A team typically consists of nine competitors: three honors, three scholastic and three varsity. However, since only the top two scores from each category count towards the team's total score, a team can compete with as few as six students without any point deduction."
Another part of the Wikipedia entry indicated that one of the reasons the founder started it to 'change 'C' students' lives.' I am just starting to learn about academic competitions, but the ones I've learned about are usually focused on the top performers. So maybe it's good that students who maybe aren't as accomplished academically can participate in this. But I seriously wonder whether a kid with a very low GPA would benefit from such a competition, unless they had some 2e issue that was normally a handicap (perhaps dyslexia?) and could show through this competition that they could accomplish just as much as kids with a higher GPA. But perhaps I'm missing the point, and I'm kind of puzzled about the unusual structure. Since you were a volunteer judge, maybe you got a better idea of what is involved--did you get the sense that it was a positive exercise for the kids?
