Application Acceptance Criteria

Submission of an application to the RIT National Science Fair does not guarantee acceptance to the fair. The following is the official list of acceptance criteria:

• Acceptance to present a project at the RIT National Science Fair requires the approval of an application submitted by the student(s).

• Applications without a project abstract will be rejected without recourse to appeal.

• Each student on a team project must complete his/her own personal application, but the project abstract need only be supplied by one member of the team. As long as the abstract is provided by at least one member, other members of the team may choose to provide or omit the abstract without penalty.

• Abstracts must demonstrate a level of knowledge and investigation that is appropriate for the grade of the student and discipline and that is beyond what is considered common knowledge. In other words, the investigations must demonstrate knowledge that is not found in middle or high school textbooks.

• Abstracts must communicate ideas effectively and use standard English.

• The methodology and experimental design should be appropriate for the student's grade and discipline, and should include the following where appropriate:

1. Experiments are appropriate to achieve the stated objective;
2. The sample size and/or number of trials is sufficient for projects where replication is necessary to establish validity;
3. The statistical analysis is appropriate for the student's grade and discipline; the conclusion is relevant to the stated hypothesis.

• Students, parents, and advisors should be aware that these acceptance criteria are not intended to limit the number of participants, but rather, by requiring higher standards for project abstracts, the criteria are intended to improve the quality of the RNSF and to ensure that all participants are able to effectively communicate their projects to the judges.