Best of Colorado Individual Student Contests
2023 gallery results are here!
We have the results from 2022-2023 grouped together by school in this spreadsheet.
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2023 ENTRIES
You are encouraged to read this post all the way through prior to preparing your entries, and to download and save/print the various forms you will find linked to this post.
Each CSMA member medium may enter ONE submission per contest category, though up to ten students can be listed as contributing to a single contest entry.
The contest website is www.betternewspapercontest.com. It will be helpful to download Contestant-Step-by-Step-Best-of-Colorado, designed to give contest entrants a step-by-step list to help make entering our contests as free of stress as possible.
If you entered previously, then your password is still good. Forgot your password? The site has a prompt to help you. If all else fails, contact [email protected] or call 970.930.1877 as soon as possible.
Please remember that advisers should always try to log on to the contest site as CONTEST MANAGERS. That will save a lot of angst.
Our individual contests in yearbook, print news/online, and video media, are called the Best of Colorado awards, and each category has a few changes most years in categories and category details, so please review those. Online media normally enter in the “print news/online” contests, and there are two categories that are “online-only,” and two award categories that are “print only.”
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
STEP 1: The general rules for the contests should be downloaded first (see link above). THIS DOCUMENT PROVIDES IMPORTANT DETAILS ON HOW TO NAVIGATE OUR CONTEST SITE. Please note that websites should enter print news/online categories or may choose to enter select video categories, as well (and this may require submitting entries in both video media and newspaper – contact Elise Carlson for details). Please contact CSMA at [email protected] if you have questions. She can also add a Video Broadcast contest link to your school, upon request, to handle your website videos.
We have estimated Class I, II and III winners by relative enrollments of entering schools, attempting to equalize the numbers of schools in each classification. Video media entries are judged in two classifications (under 1,500 enrollment or over 1,500), and all middle school yearbooks are in one category, regardless of school size. We use student enrollment figures taken from the CHSAA website, covering 2020-2022.
STEP 2: Familiarize yourself with our various contest categories (all BOC Contest Descriptions 2023). The list of categories for each medium can be downloaded for news publications (whether newspapers, magazines, or websites – please note that if a school has current memberships in BOTH news publication and website, EACH of those media may enter one category (for instance, Kenerski HS may enter a news feature story from its print newspaper as well as a different news feature story from its website), for yearbooks, and for video media.
Please note the Yearbook Category: Chronological Coverage. To avoid confusion, this one category requires THREE consecutive chronological spreads. Yearbook coverage trends continually evolve, and UMBRELLA coverage should be entered in this category (again, with THREE consecutive spreads).
Please note that the Breaking News and Breaking Sports categories under News Publications are for ONLINE ONLY. This seeks to emphasize on-the-spot reporting and reacting to rapidly unfolding events. If your publication is what might be called a “hybrid,” using both print and online to cover your school community, you may only enter from your online media in these two categories. If you have questions, please contact [email protected] for clarification. NOTE 2: There are no design contests at this time for online media. Our two design contests are “print only.”
IMPORTANT: When you are entering one photo and caption from a spread or page of photos, our judges need some indicator of which photo to analyze. If there is any doubt at all, we prefer that you draw a red box, either in InDesign prior to exporting your PDF, or using Acrobat Professional’s drawing tools directly on your PDF. You may also clearly point the judge to a specific photo in the comments box on the entry form. Entries that are unclear may be disqualified.
When entering a complete spread or page, or when there can be no question about what the judge is to look for, don’t worry about drawing a red box around the entry.
STEP 3: When preparing PDFs, please choose SMALLEST FILE SIZE when prompted. Uploading all 100MB of your yearbook cover slows down the system and does not improve the art on the computer screen, where all judging will take place.
Here’s a cool free site that can take your PDFs and condense them in such a way that they still look great to judges on a computer screen.
IMPORTANT: We highly recommend at least sending a test PDF to the contest site as soon as you can to avoid chaos when the submission deadline arrives. Trying out the site early also allows us to work through issues with school Internet filters, which occasionally block the site’s automated emails. The site sends a verification email after the first entry from your medium, so please look for that right away (it may end up in a SPAM folder). You will not be able to continue uploading entries until you have verified that YOU are the account holder.
Important: If you do not receive the confirmation email from the system, and do not see it in your SPAM folder, consider logging in and changing the email address to a personal one not afflicted by school filters. No other issue has caused as many problems as this one. As always, contact Elise Carlson at [email protected] (or 970.930.1877) if you encounter difficulties of any kind. The contest site offers a HELP TICKET, as well. Don’t hesitate to submit one of those.
Entries for print news/online and video media need to have been published/broadcast in the period August 1, 2022 – end of the school year, while yearbook entries must be scheduled for publication in the 2023 book.
Again, a medium may enter as few or many individual categories as desired. You should receive certificates NLT May 20, and can choose to have them emailed or snail-mailed.
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