Judges - Frequently Asked Questions

Most adults can evaluate a 5th - 8th grade level project without a college degree. The most important aspect of being a judge, is being able to apply the judging guidelines fairly and consistently across all projects you are assigned, and to encourage kids to be successful.

Generally, the lower grades will take 3 - 4 hours to judge.  If you have volunteered for high school projects, it will be between 6 - 7 hours because you will first judge the projects in the morning, and then interview the high school students in the afternoon.

We try to accommodate grade level preferences.  However, category cannot be accommodated in most cases.  We have a limited number of judges, so we must move judges around to get all projects judged on time.

Due to time and travel constraints, only the high school students have interviews as part of the judging process.  

Yes! We have an online judge's manual that explains the process step by step.  We also provide a judges appreciation dinner a day or two prior to judging day where we review the judging process.  You can also email questions to yesfair@ssvec.com

On average, we need 60 - 80 judges and an additional 20 - 30 volunteers throughout YES Fair week to make this event a success.  We can use volunteers for facility set up, project registration & check-in, judging day, public day, clean up, and the awards ceremony.