Judging Procedures
Download the Scoring Rubic PDF >
The winning team(s) will be determined by a panel of judges with business experience.
- Panels of no fewer than three judges will be used in the semifinals.
- A panel of six judges will be used in the finals. None of the six may have served as a judge in the semifinals.
Judges will receive the written business plans along with the Evaluation Rubric several days in advance of the oral presentations. Judges will complete the business plan portions of the Evaluation Rubrics and bring them to the oral presentations.
The scores awarded for the multimedia and oral presentation portions of the Evaluation Rubric will focus on the effectiveness of public speaking and presentation skills in support of the team’s request for financing. It is also very important how well the team members respond to questions from the judges. The judges may ask questions of specific individuals on the team as well as the team as a group.
Judges will individually score the teams and will not be aware of the scores of the other judges. They will enter a score between 0 and 10 for each element of the Evaluation Rubric.
The scoring continuum headings on the Evaluation Rubric are clarified below:
- Exceeds Expectations – the information is presented effectively and creatively;
nothing more could be expected of an applicant. - Meets Expectations – the information is well presented. Though there may be a few minor problems or omissions, they are not significant. Creativity, however, is not shown to any great degree.
- Below Expectations – the information presented does not meet minimum standards of acceptability.
- Little Value – some major flaw(s) has been noted that damages the effectiveness of the proposal (this may be a major omission, a serious misstatement, poor writing or any other major flaw).
- No Value – the information presented is of no value (does not help the proposal at all).
Winners of both the semifinals and the final competition will be determined by averaging the total point scores assigned by each of the judges using the Evaluation Rubric. Averages will be carried out to the third decimal place.
If a team misses a deadline (enforced to the exact minute), the team will lose 50 points from its final evaluation score for each day a deadline is missed. Teachers will record missed deadlines on the “Penalty Point Assessment Form” and will give this form to the Scoring Team on the day of the presentations. To avoid any possibility of prejudice, judges will not be made aware of any penalty point assessments.
Judges will score each team as if it were requesting financing for a real-world project.
If two or more teams are tied with the same final score, the panel will decide the winning team by selecting the plan having the highest realistic potential return on investment – notwithstanding the financials presented by the team.
All panel decisions are final. No appeals will be considered.
Standards for Selection of Judges
Panels of judges will play the role of venture capitalists and will judge each team’s proposal on the basis of investment potential as presented in both written and oral form. Selection of these judges is subject to the following standards and restrictions:
- Experience in business management
- The recommendation of at least one member of the Career Partners Board of Trustees
- No connection to the school administration or teaching staff other than through Career Partners
- For semifinals - No known connection by blood or marriage to any student in the entire E Squared competition. After all E Squared participating students are identified and the semifinal judges have been tentatively selected, those judges will be sent a list of all students participating and will be asked to review the list and let us know of any conflicts. A conflict will disqualify that judge.
- For finals - No known connection by blood or marriage to any student in the final competition. Immediately after the finalists are announced, the business people selected to be finals judges will be contacted with a list of those students participating in the finals. If any proposed judge has a relative by blood or marriage competing in the finals, that judge will be deemed ineligible.