How your school can qualify for the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019

Get to know exactly how your school can qualify for our final stage, the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019.

You have all been asking us the same, valid, questions about how students move to our final stage — the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019. To help give you some clarity, we have explained a little more below.

Remember: your CyberStart Game scores will be used from 23:59 EDT this Wednesday, May 15, 2019 to determine if your school will get through to the next stage, the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019.

FAQ:

Can schools view the CyberStart Game leaderboard?

Girls Go CyberStart is not running a leaderboard to show scores in CyberStart Game.

Leaderboards push the most experienced students — or those who can dedicate the most time — to race through the challenges and post very high scores early in the competition. However, the result of this is that many other students give up, believing that they can’t win, so why keep trying.

Some schools enjoy running their own internal leaderboard and enjoy the energy of competition, while other schools create small teams to work collaboratively.

The most important thing to is to have fun and encourage persistence as these traits are key to cybersecurity success!

What’s the ranking criteria used to determine if our school is through to the final stage, the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019?

The ranking criteria to qualify for the final stage considers multiple factors, including individual student scores in Game, average progress and overall student participation count per school.

Plus we’ve worked hard to ensure there won’t be a systemic advantage for either larger schools with raw numbers or small schools where a single excelling participant might skew the numbers.

There are a few girls who are competing well, but our school also has a lot of girls who are just trying it out. Will these low-scoring girls keep our school out of the final stage?

The ranking criteria takes into consideration many varying factors, including participation levels, and doesn’t just average student scores across the school. We want every girl possible to enjoy trying out CyberStart Game, so don’t hold back on engaging girls who aren’t yet excelling.

One of the ways you can engage competitive students and new students alike is to have a special event to have the ‘expert’ girls mentor the ‘newbies’. Or you could have a pizza party to see how far everyone can get in a few, fun hours.

How many schools can be selected from each state for the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019?

There is no specific limit on the number of schools that can be selected from each state. However, there is a limit on the number of teams that can participate in the National Championship for Girls Go CyberStart 2019.

While our intent is to have a minimum representation from each state, we are valuing achievement over geography when deciding which teams participate in the final stage.

No matter the outcome on May 15, CyberStart Game continues until June 28, offering over 230 challenges for students to test their skills and learn new techniques. Stay encouraged and use these incredible resources to develop cybersecurity skills, working with your fellow students to fully understand the role of a security agent.

Missed out on Girls Go CyberStart? Register your interest to be included in the next intake here