Eligibility Rules 2012

1. Affiliated Fair. Qualification to the California State Science Fair is through an affiliated county or regional science fair, and is by being specifically identified as a qualified (or an alternate) project from the affiliated fair. (See Affiliated Fairs Note below.) Each student must qualify through the affiliated fair responsible for the geographical domain including the student's school. Exception requests, including students whose schools are not accepted by any current affiliate, must be emailed to CalifSF@usc.edu. Projects which have placed in the top forty in the Intel Science Talent Search also qualify for entry; such projects are not counted against the allocation of any affiliate.
2. California Student. Each applicant must be a student in an educational institution recognized by the State of California and enrolled in grades 6-12 at the time of qualification. Students in grades 6-8 participate in the Junior Division, while students in grades 9-12 participate in the Senior Division.
3. Single Entry. Each student may enter only one project in the Fair. Each project may have one to three authors. Team projects will be placed in competition with individual projects in the same categories, though judging panels will have a higher level of expectation for team projects commensurate with the number of students on the team. All work must be done by the student(s) named as author(s). Projects entered into the Fair under an individual's name but discovered by the judging panel to have been prepared by a team of more than one student will be disqualified.
4. Categorization. The Directors of Judging will determine, upon review of submitted Project Summaries, the correct category for each project. The California State Science Fair reserves the right to disqualify any project due to poor quality, incompleteness, or inappropriateness of project content.
5. New Research. Any project reentered from a past State Science Fair must show substantial new research and development to be eligible for an award. Final determination shall be made by the category judges.
6. Supervision. Students not accompanied by their own parent(s) must be under authorized supervision by an adult escort, teacher, or administrator. Each student must have appropriate signed permission form(s) as required by his/her own school district. The California State Science Fair is not responsible for the supervision of any participant.

All Eligible Projects Will Not Necessarily Be Accepted

Each affiliated fair has been allocated a maximum number of projects which it may qualify to CSSF. Affiliates may also identify a small number of alternates for consideration if qualified projects elect not to apply. Every project should be informed by the affiliate whether they are qualified or an alternate.

IMPORTANT: Qualified projects are guaranteed priority over alternates only if completed by the relevant deadlines. Any project completed later will not be considered if projects completed earlier (qualified or alternate) have filled the affiliate's allocation. All projects are also subject tothe quality review described elsewhere.

Affiliated Fairs Note:

Affiliated fairs will normally not be able to designate all First, Second, and Third place award winners as eligible for the California State Science Fair owing to the allocation limit described in the previous paragraph. Each affiliated fair must provide to CSSF the list of students and projects from their fair which have been selected as eligible for the California State Science Fair. At the affiliate's discretion, a prioritized list of approved alternates may also be provided.