I found a comment on one of the state award ceremonies sites that I thought was interesting. The number of kids that get awards is based on the size of the room they can get for the ceremony. So I guess it ends up being a curve for practical reasons. Looking at their scores cut-off they had a higher cut-off for the state awards than the regional award ceremony. ... must not have had access to a big enough room that year. Anyway it is a hard lesson to learn as a kid. It is great when you win something, but there are always factors outside your control that can affect winning so you can't take not-'winning' to personally either.