State Competition

State Team Selection:

The highest scoring 24 schools from the four regionals are invited to the IAD State Competition. They are then be divided in half to determine the 12 largest and 12 smallest schools. Division I schools are the 12 qualifying schools with the largest populations. Division II schools are the 12 qualifying schools with the twelve smallest populations. The schools are then sorted from lowest scoring to highest scoring in each division to determine placement. This change was made beginning the 2021 competition season.

Forms:

Student Code of Conduct, Student Registration, and Transcripts from Regional Competitions will be used for the State Competition. Please leave them in your school folder and remove all forms for students not competing at State.

Payments: 

Purchase orders and checks should be made out to Iowa Academic Decathlon and sent to Virginia Roudabush, 306 3rd Street SW, Mount Vernon, IA  52314-1721.

Essay Competition Online:

The essay competition for State will be conducted online and prior to the State Competition.

A practice session will be held on Tuesday, February 18, 2025 from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm.

The official essay competition will take place on Thursday, February 20, 2025 from 7 am - 7 pm.

Essays will be scored by USAD judges.

Detailed information here soon

Banquet Tickets:

The Awards Banquet will be held on Saturday evening of the State Competition.

Banquet tickets are included with the registration fee for all team members and coaches listed on registration form.

Additional tickets can be purchased for $25 by contacting treasurer@iowaacdec.org until the Monday before State at 8 pm. Tickets might be available but are not guaranteed after 8 pm on the Monday before State.

Banner Order Form Extra Team Plaques Order Form

Super Quiz:

Super Quiz is a collaborative event.

Students in each gpa division collaborate with each other to answer 13 questions.

There is a possible team total of 39 points.

The super quiz score does NOT count toward the team score, but winners in both large and small schools receive a plaque and are recognized at the awards ceremony.

National Competitions:

For the National Competition, we will send the highest scoring and second highest scoring teams from our State Competition.  Our third team will be the highest scoring team in the opposite division from the highest scoring team. 

For Online National Competition, we recognize the medium size schools with populations up to 1300. We send our highest scoring small school, up to 650, to the small school competition. We send our highest scoring small or medium, up to 1300 to the medium school competition. We send our highest scoring large, above 1300, to the large school competition. These exclude the highest scoring teams who are invited to attend the national competition in person.

School enrollment of competing online school must be: large = not to exceed 10,000; medium = not to exceed 1,300; small = not to exceed 650 (grades 9–12). Enrollment for the scrimmage, Regional Competition, and State Competition is based on prior year reporting through the Iowa Department of Education. For schools advancing to any of the National Competitions, face-to-face or online, enrollment is based on the enrollment from December 1 of the previous year.

Qualifications for USAD National Competitions will continue to be dependent on USAD Guidelines and Requirements.