What do people in the USA mean "qualify for states?"

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion
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I see a lot of people mentioning that they need to qualify for states. What does that mean? In singapore, there isn’t a requirement for going to nationals. How do you qualify for state; if you qualify for state, do you go to worlds? Just wondering lol

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In the US, there are states, or “regions”. In these states they have competitions inside of them to see who is good enough to get a chance at going to worlds. This chance at making it to worlds is what we call “state championships”. In them, you have teams that have rather won awards to qualify them to state competition, or skills rankings. In skills rankings, teams in a state will do their skills and see who can get the highest out of their state, and if someone does that, they get to qualify for states. If a team is already qualify for state, they go down the rankings in skills in that state. During the state championship, you get awards that qualify your team for the world championship.

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@Semonater470
Do talk to your seniors or teachers regarding the qualification process (for worlds), etc. They will be able to give you more info.

But in summary, the qualification process for small regions is different from those from bigger regions.

Small regions (usually):
Nationals → worlds

Big Regions:
Regional → states/provincial → worlds

The number of teams for Singapore has growth (slightly), but we are still consider as a small region.

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Also, when a state or province is divided into multiple regions (such as Florida being divided into South Florida and North/Central Florida), and likely also if multiple states or parts of states are combined into one region (such as Delmarva) for Worlds qualification purposes, each of these would often be called a Regional Championship, though some teams might informally still call them States. (I usually call the lowest level of events local tournaments instead of regional tournaments to avoid confusion. They can also be called Regional Qualifiers, meaning that certain award winners qualify to that area’s Regional Championship.)

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