California State Science Fair
Changes from 2000 - 2001

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The California State Science Fair strives continually to improve the quality of the event for its participants throughout the State of California. As part of these ongoing efforts we will be implementing certain policy changes this year. Some of these changes were discussed at the last County Coordinators' Conference which was held during the 2000 California State Science Fair.


Location
 * Fair Moved to California Science Center
Policy Changes
 * Application Deadline Now Final
Annual Update
 * Revised Project Allocations for 2001

Fair Moved to California Science Center

The 2001 Fair will be held in the California Science Center. After nearly a decade of being held in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, the 2001 California State Science Fair will return to the location of its host, the California Science Center. While most of the projects will be sited within the Science Center, not all can fit within the confines of this structure, so several categories will be placed in the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History which is immediately adjacent to the Science Center. In fact, the Natural History Museum was the original host of the California State Science Fair. Complete details about the new locations of all events associated with the Fair will be provided on this Web site when they are finalized.


Application Deadline Now Final

Each affiliated fair's Application Deadline is now its Final Deadline. For the past several years the California State Science Fair has permitted students to submit applications to the Fair up until a Final Deadline which was approximately 3 weeks before the Fair. This permitted students whose fairs were more than 2 weeks earlier than that date to choose whether or not to file by their Application Deadline. The penalty was originally only a higher Application Fee, and in 2000 carried the possibility of being rejected outright if even lesser ranking projects from the affiliate had already filled the affiliate's allocation to CSSF.

The California State Science Fair has now decided that each affiliate's Application Deadline will be its Final Deadline. There is no special provision for late applications. Applications submitted after the relevant Application Deadline will be rejected. Please note that Application Deadlines are based upon postmark dates, not receipt dates, so that whether an application has been submitted on time should be well-known by each student.

Recognizing that special circumstances do of necessity occur on rare occasions, the Fair will consider appeals from students whose applications are submitted after the appropriate Application Deadline, but only on a case-by-case basis. No such applications are guaranteed acceptance. Further, no appeals will be considered if the allocation for the student's affiliated fair has already been filled by the date of the appeal. Appeals must be in writing, and may be submitted via e-mail to CalifSF@usc.edu. Appeals by phone are not acceptable.

While the Fair will attempt to notify late applicants of rejection in a timely manner, owing to the large number of applications received by the Fair immediately prior to and after the final Application Deadline (April 30 this year) the Fair may not even know whether particular applications are late until it is too late for appeals. Consequently, the Fair makes no guarantee that students will be informed of their rejection in time for an appeal. Late applicants are therefore required to file an appeal, and not simply submit an application in its place.

Exception: The only exception to the policy of not accepting late applications is in the case of team projects where at least one member of the team submits an application by the Application Deadline, but other members fail to do so. The reason for this exception is that all members of a team must submit their own personal application. However, it is expected that all team members will only submit applications together in the same envelope, so that the exception of this paragraph should not ever need to be applied.


Revised Project Allocations for 2001

The allocations to affiliated fairs of the number of projects which may be sent to CSSF have been revised from 2000 levels. Beginning in 1998, the number of projects which each affiliated fair is allowed to certify to CSSF has been defined as an explicit limit by CSSF, rather than loose limits determined by each fair independently. Generally speaking, this new allocation process has been a success. Based upon discussions with our affiliates, most notably all of those participating in recent County Coordinators Conferences, these allocations have been revised for 2001. Here are these allocations, along with their determining factors. All affiliates have been informed of their allocations in the announcement letter from the Chair of the Fair.


See also: Changes in recent years: 2000 , 1999 , 1998 , 1997 .

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Last updated: Mon Jan 22 09:49:05 PST 2001
California State Science Fair / Changes for 2001 / CalifSF@usc.edu