Scoring & Judges

NCA High School Nationals trophy

Scoring & Judges

At Varsity Spirit, we remain committed to fair and consistent scoring. Our goal is to evolve and provide the tools needed to all school teams this season for a clear understanding of divisions, rules, and scoring. To achieve this, we will follow the four guiding principles of transparency, fairness, integrity, and safety.

Judge Selection - Criteria

Criteria for Selecting Judges

Judges selected for one of our regional events should meet these standards

  • Have no direct affiliation with any team/gym who will be attending (or potentially will be attending) in a division they will judge. This includes coaching, choreographing, cleaning, etc.
  • Must be available for pre-event training via webinar at a time/date to be determined
  • Must pass and be trained and educated in one or more of the category scoresheets that are used for judging.
  • Must be of the highest ethical and moral values. Must possess and maintain the highest standards of integrity, ethics and professionalism.
  • Must complete Varsity Spirit Compliance Course to include
    • Background Check
    • Code of Conduct
    • Understanding, Recognizing and Reporting the Maltreatment of Children
    • Affidavit of Good Moral Character
  • Must be well-respected in the cheerleading, dance, band and/or song/pom industry.
  • Judges will be informed that any behavior deemed to be unsupportive of Varsity Spirit’s mission may be factored into the final selection of judges.

In addition to the regional event standards these additional criteria will be used when selecting our National Championship Judges.

  • Preferred to have judged or will judge 2 or more “Regional” type events during the 2023-2024 season.
  • Preferred to have been a judge or equitable experience for at least 3 years.

For Nationals/Championship events

  • Due to the size of our National Championships, judge’s with conflicts may be selected. Every effort will be made to ensure that a judge with a potential Conflict of Interest is not scheduled to judge that team or school’s divisions.

Judge Selection - Conflicts of Interest

Providing accurate, fair, and unbiased feedback for our customers is one of our top priorities.  With that said, our selected panel of judges must have no affiliation with teams in a division they are scheduled to judge.

Example of potential Conflicts of Interest:

  • Current Coach and/or Choreographer
  • Former Coach and/or Choreographer and/or Athlete
    • Must be 5 years out from any program
    • Must not have had any contact with a team this season
    • Did not go to any practices or performances in the last 5 years
  • Married / Partner / Dating / Related to coach
  • Parent of an athlete on a team

For Nationals/Championship events

  • Due to the size of our National Championships, judge’s with conflicts may be selected. Every effort will be made to ensure that a judge with a potential Conflict of Interest is not scheduled to judge that team or school’s divisions.

Scoring and Legality Review Process

Legality Review Process

Varsity Spirit offers a service to help teams with legality and safety questions. Teams will be able to email skills in throughout the year to receive a legality or safety response. This service will help teams get a response with a video attached back to use in situations where the skill may be in question.

Teams are not required, but encouraged, to submit a safety video.

To email a video, the following must be included:

  1. The skill in question must be recorded by the team at practice. We are unable to accept videos from performances, competitions, or of other teams.
  2. All submissions must include the coach, team, and division.
  3. The recording will be reviewed as if every person in the video is included in the skill. This would include additional spotters.
  4. Videos are limited to 30 seconds and must be able to be viewed upright without rotating.
  5. The recording will be limited to attachments only. Links, video sharing and YouTube style videos will not be accepted. While this does limit the video size, you are able to submit multiple videos.
  6. All videos will either receive either a “legal” or “illegal” response. If the video receives an “illegal” response, the entire video will not be reviewed but stopped at the point that the video was illegal. *If the video is inconclusive, you will receive a response as to why we were unable to make a judgement. It is up to you as a coach to resubmit the video to be re-reviewed.

Videos that do not follow the above rules will not receive a response.

If you know that your video does not meet all the requirements above, please refilm/resubmit the video. Only videos that meet the above requirements will be reviewed.

Please note: Performing the skill at a prior event does not ensure that a skill is legal nor that it would have warranted a legality warning.  Only submitting the skill will make the skill eligible for a warning. UCA can only guarantee this process will be accepted at UCA-branded events. This would not include other Varsity-branded and state association events.

Click here for a complete list of changes for the 2023-2024 USA Cheer High School Rules.

Brand Specific Resources

CHEER

DANCE

Interested in becoming a Varsity Spirit Judge?

Interested in Judging?

  • Thank you for your interest in becoming a judge for Varsity Spirit! Applications for the 2025-2026 season will be open from May 1, 2025 until August 1, 2025. To apply click HERE!