Our Process

For complete transparency, here's the entire process from submission to judging to awards.

Submission

You submit up to 5 entries through our form

Your information is sent to our database

From there, only student works and their subsequent categories are sent to a separate platform for judges (without names, ages, or any other personal information disclosed)

Judging

A minimum of two chosen judges thoroughly review your work

Give both a rating on a scale (0.0 to 10.0) and additional comments on your piece

Note: there is no objective rubric

In each of the 5 categories, we separate the entries by average rating, and the top 30% enter the second round of judging

Another additional judge will rate your piece again

Top 10-20 entries in each category are then ranked top to bottom

Awards

In each category:

Highest 1-2: Gold Medallions

Next highest 3-4: Silver Medallions

Next highest 6-10: Bronze Medallions

Rest of the top 30%: Honorable Mentions

A list of all award recipients will be made, with email certificates sent to each student and parent/guardian's emails

All medallion recipients will be published on the ISHWC Medium publication.

Gold Medallion recipients will also be published on our website, and the cash prize will be transferred through Zelle (with either the parent's email address or phone number)

Unfortunately, because of international transfer fees, no cash prizes are currently available for international highschoolers.