Competition Format
Academic events at the high school level are held in the spring. Schools compete within the same conference as in athletics and marching band.
There is no division of competition by grade level in high school academic events; all students in grades 9-12 that compete in a particular event compete against each other. Advancement is from district to region to state except in Cross-Examination Team Debate, where advancement is directly from district to state, and in One-Act Play, where advancement is from district to area to region to state. Furthermore, districts with eight or more competing schools may subdivide into zones and hold One-Act Play competitions in each zone in order to select schools to advance to the district level.
Except for Cross-Examination Team Debate and One-Act Play, the top three individuals and all members of the first place team (for events with team components) are certified to advance to the next level of competition. The UIL has also adopted a "wild card" system for those events with team components, which is made possible since all test materials are uniform throughout the state. Under the wild card system, the highest scoring second place team from among all districts in each region will advance to the region meet, and the highest scoring second place team from all four regions in each conference will advanced to the state meet. In the Science competition, in addition to the top three individuals and top team, the top scorers in each of the three subject areas of biology, chemistry, and physics also advance to the next level of competition. All students who advance to the next level of competition are eligible to earn individual medals, even if they advanced as part of a team or as one of the Science top subject area scorers.
In Cross-Examination Team Debate, the first and second place teams in each district advance directly to state, though additional qualification criteria must be met depending on the number of teams entered and the number of schools represented in the district meet. In One-Act Play, two unranked plays from each level of competition are selected to advance with plays only being ranked at the state meet.
In order to determine the school with the best overall school in a conference, points are awarded to the top six finishers and top two teams. Certain events also have bonus points, and in many cases an event will have a cap to the maximum number of points a school can be awarded.
Read more about this topic: List Of University Interscholastic League Events, Academic Events, High School
Famous quotes containing the word competition:
“Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major—perhaps the major—stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.”
—Jean François Lyotard (b. 1924)