Hey!! Calling ALL NCWIT applicants to join this thread!!!
So, who applied this year???
hi! I did-- still anxiously waiting to hear back even though mid-December has passed
Cool! Yeah, mid December passed lol, but there’s still the state level awards. Those get sent out in January!!
Where are you from? What state? @imabelli
How hard is it to get the state award? @Xboxgamergirl
I can’t say how hard it is for state, but I can say that if you don’t win state, you will most likely win runner up for state- (I won that last year). And its basically the same thing as state, but instead of a trophy, you get a certificate. Remember, the goal of the organization is to award as many women to promote engineering
Now to give you an idea:
When you check marked the different things on the application (like when it asked you, do you know word, visual data, excel, graphics)-- those are all points. The more you know and check off, the more points you get. That really bumps you up. The essays then are also scored by two people (the more passion your essays show, the more points you will get). Finally, when your teacher goes in to endorse your application, if he/she chooses to type a quick note describing your passion/attitude, you get 3 bonus points.
The computer counts up all the points for each applicant and ranks them from highest to lowest. The tope 35 get national winners and are told around mid December. Then the rest of the applicants are grouped by state, and then those applications go to the state NCWIT head, and they redo the process. New people will read and score your essays. This time the computer will score up the points of each applicant within the state and the top #_________ will get the state level award, while another #___________ will get the runner up for state, and the rest don’t get anything.
Now national award runner ups also exists. But usually they are the next 16-30 applicants after the top 35 national winners.
Another thing to note that it is safe to say that national award winners and national award runner ups also win the state level awards. Naitonal winners have all been announced, but I don’t know how the announce the national runner up winners. Maybe they will get an email in jan along with the state level winners. If you are a national winner/runner up- you get to go to 2 banquets. The state level banquet and the nation banquet in NC. If you are a state level or state runner up, then you go to the state level banquet only.
I have never been to the national banquet, but I do know that the state level banquet is AMAZING. you can take as many people as you would like, you get prizes from google, home depot, Microsoft, cybermonkey. You get to meet AMAZING people, and the food is absolutely wonderful. You literally feel like a royal princess. So even if you win the state level/state runner up, GO TO THE BANQUET!! Also, you get to join the NCWIT facebok group, which gives you ENDLESS opportunities to engineering!!
Hope that helps @jmh311 – But honestly, its not that hard to get an award. I remember I BSed the application because I thought I wasn’t gonna get anything, but even after the messy essays I wrote, I won the state runner up, so yeah- if you checked a lot of the “are you familiar with _” boxes, you are on the right track to winning state
Good luck! I’m excited this year, we have had about 3100 applications this year- THE BIGGEST YET!!
@Xboxgamergirl In the future, can you condense things like posts 5-11 into ONE post?
Sorry 
Even if I try to write that whole thing in one post, it ends up cutting half of it out. Maybe its cause a word limit or something.
(in a serious and humble tone)- you know you can turn your notifications off for any thread. All you have to do is go to the settings for notifications and uncheck the box that says “email me…”.
But yeah, will definitely condense in the future, got it 
@awesomepolyglot , did you apply this year? If so, what state are you from? Did you get any emails or anything regarding the awards?
No. I looked at the app and decided that I’m not really even close to the level as most of the applicants.
ahh, you don’t know that!! I thought that I was no where compared to others when I got the state runner up- all that really matters is that you have a passion. I mean, unless you are a guy-- then you have no chance at getting the award cause the award is only for girls haha.
Apply next year!! Who knows, maybe you will end up winning a national award!!
Texas! Are you sure that national award winners have already been announced? I was a runner-up last year, and I was also notified in December.
@imabelli , I’m pretty positive. They told the winners to send in their address by the 21st of December. So I’m guessing that applied to all national winners, but I could be wrong.
Okay, so runner ups get notified in December, didn’t know that. Thanks for the info!!
Nah I’m pretty sure you’re right
Also, your affiliate sounds amazing! Last year, mine only got the stuff sent in from the national organization-- the trophies, bags, and fliers. I was hoping for a T-shirt 
Do you know someone who won?