Judging Instructions

All directors that enter a student in the All-Region and/or All-State process MUST serve as a judge or acquire an eligible proxy (to be approved by the Region Chair); directors are responsible for financial compensation of proxy judges ($50 for am, $50 for pm).

Your job is easier than it used to be since all scores will be input online.  Be sure to bring your own electronic device!  The online system will help you break your own ties.  However, taking your own notes will help you make decisions on how to break ties.  Your total number of points is 300 so that you can use the tie breaking sheet to break your own ties.  At the end make sure you have no ties and that you have a total for each student.  The program will deal with ties but if most of you gave the same score to two different students, the program will place the students in audition order. The computer will do all the rest of the calculations. 

Thank you so much for adjudicating for the students in Region 16!  Here are some important instructions to make your experience judging both enjoyable and efficient.

BEFORE YOU JUDGE…

1. If possible, please familiarize yourself with the audition excerpts before the day of judging.  You should receive in the email with your judging panel links an additional link to the excerpts you will evaluate.

2. Verify that each judging link (found in an official judging email) works correctly and accesses the correct judging panel.

3. Be sure that you have a laptop or chromebook that can easily access Wifi; be sure that it is fully charged for the day of judging.  You may also wish to bring a charging cable.

THE DAY OF JUDGING…

1. Please dress in business casual attire.

2. Please arrive in advance of the start time for auditions.  There will be materials that need to be distributed as well as “day of” instructions that will be discussed in a Judges’ Meeting:

   1. Mariachi judges’ meeting will begin at 5:15 pm on 10/11 and 10/12

   2. MS Orchestra judges’ meeting will begin at 8:10 am on 10/14

   3. HS Orchestra judges’ meeting will begin at 12:40 pm on 10/14

3. Please review the following points of judge decorum:

   1. Please don’t use your cell phones while judging.  This includes any sort of texting, social media, recording, calling, or using the calculator.  Please wait until a break to use your phone.  I suggest you put it on airplane mode and keep it out of sight so you are not even tempted.

   2. It is possible that you will hear something comical during judging.  Please remember to be professional at all times.  Do not laugh at students or make jokes.  You never know when students are in the room.

   3. Do everything to maintain the anonymity of the auditioning students.  Students should always be addressed as Instrument # (e.g., Violin 23).

THE JUDGING PROCESS…

1. You will receive an envelope for each panel on which you will judge.  Inside the envelope you should find the following items: Judging Form 2, Audition Music, and a Pencil (only in the first folder if you are serving on several panels, as is the case for Mariachi and low string panels).

2. Remove the forms and complete the top portion (Name, contact information, etc.).  Your Form 2 is meant for tie-breaking 

3. Using your laptop or chromebook, access the link for the panel of instruments you are judging.  You will input your scores ONLINE.  The forms are official documents, but are not where scores will be input.  You should plan to use a point system consistently.  A good practice is to use a 100-point scale for each excerpt and use 5-point increments (if possible) in your scoring.  This helps with breaking ties which often only require adding or deducting a single point.

4. Form 1 may be used to make comments on each student’s performance.  This will greatly help in the process of breaking ties later on.  However, you are not required to use Form 1 to complete the scoring process for students.  Keep your comments professional; they are public record and may be viewed by directors if requested.  If a grievance or appeal is applied, students and parents may have access to your comments.

5. Form 2 will be used to break ties.  Once each group of students reaches their final audition excerpt, you will be able to mark each auditioning student’s final score on the Form 2.  This will give you a spatial view of where each student lies in the spread of scores.  It is best to break ties as you go using the Form 2.  Use the comments you placed on Form 1 to help determine how to break ties.

6. All students will perform the designated excerpt before moving to the next excerpt, so you will be able to more accurately compare performance on a given excerpt.  For each excerpt, students will perform in a different order; this shares the burden of being the first to play on an excerpt.  Be sure that you verify the student you are scoring before entering it online!  Between each excerpt students will have 60 seconds to practice before beginning the next round.  Use this time to finish comments and scores from the previous excerpt.

   1. If the monitor skips an audition ID number, be sure to skip it as well.  You may ask at the end of each group to have the monitor verify students who are designated as DNA (did not audition).

7. Once you have heard all students for each instrument panel, you will then submit all of your scores.  If there are any ties left, you will be asked to break them before your scores can officially be submitted.

   1. Remember:  The numerical value of your scores is only used to determine your rank order of students from top to bottom.  Your grading scale, if applied consistently, may be very different from another judge on your panel; this will not negatively impact the judging process.

8. Once your scores are verified, all of your forms should be given to the panel chair (Judge 1).  These forms will be placed in the Judge 1 folder and given to the Region Chair.

THE ROLE OF THE PANEL CHAIR…

It is the role of the panel chair to interact with the monitor and verbally verify each students’ audition ID as it is called by the monitor.  At the end of each instrument panel, the panel chair will conduct a brief panel meeting to discuss the recommended number of students to accept into the Region Organization.  Following the panel meeting, the panel chair will collect all forms and place them in the Judge 1 folder.  The remaining folders and audition excerpt music will also be organized by the panel chair.

AFTER JUDGING…

1. Once you have finished judging, please wait until all of your scores have been verified and finalized by the Region Chair/Tabulator before leaving the audition site.

2. As a professional courtesy, please only share audition results with your own students.  Please do not rob another director of the opportunity to tell their own students the results of the audition.

3. Please keep panel deliberations confidential regarding the determination of the number of accepted members.