California State Science Fair
Project Allocations - 2006

The California State Science Fair has established the nominal target number for participating projects in the 2006 Fair at 850, the same as in recent years. Based upon our experience with the results of allocations in the years since 1998 when allocations were first necessitated, we have established this year's allocations for each affiliate as given in the table below. Note that the total of all allocations is significantly greater than our participation target — built into the allocations listed below is the assumption that a certain fraction will not be utilized. Thus it is important to recognize that unutilized allocations of one affiliate will not be reassigned to another.

This year the allocations to all affiliates have been adjusted from those in 2005 in an effort to minimize disruption from significant changes in allocations, while simultaneously better accounting for the quality of projects across affiliates. This quality is monitored by the fraction of each affiliate's projects receiving category awards, averaged over the past five fairs. Affiliates whose projects have won more (or less) than the State average will find their allocation from 2005 adjusted up (or down) in proportion to this quality measure and the size of their previous allocation. This result was previewed before last year's Fair when we announced (on last year's Changes for 2005) page, “It is anticipated that average project quality will increase in importance in setting future allocations.” The allocation algorithm for future years will be based upon all of the relevant criteria distinguishing affiliates.

It is the continuing intention of the California State Science Fair to balance the competing goals of raising the quality of projects exhibited at the Fair, providing opportunities for participation to students without an established history of strong science fairs in their geographical region, and fairly recognize all affiliates, large and small, urban and rural, well- and poorly-supported throughout the entire State of California.

Most affiliates will find insignificant changes in their allocation to CSSF given in the table immediately below. As one measure of the size of these changes, only one-quarter of the allocations (7) have changed from 2005 by more than 10%, and of these seven, the mean size of their allocation changes is only 4. Small fairs are guaranteed not to have their allocations reduced below the baseline of 6 as specified in previous years.

In cases where these revised allocations for 2006 cause extreme difficulties, affected affiliates are urged to contact us immediately. Similarly, we welcome your comments regarding the fairness of the allocations given above by emailing directly to us.