Category placements and overall awards

A category placement is a routine's rank among the routines in its own category. An overall award is chosen from a wider pool, usually the top scores across a whole size category. They are worked out separately.

Category placements

• Routines are grouped by their assigned category: size, classification, genre and age group together.
• Each group is sorted by average score, highest first. Every scored routine gets a rank; cancelled and withdrawn routines are left out.
• How many places are announced is a competition setting, by size category. If nothing is set, the top three are announced.
• A competition can instead award places by the number of routines in the category: one to four routines award that many places, five to nine award five, ten or more award ten.

Overall awards

• Overalls are ranked by average score across the size category (solo, duet/trio, small group, large group and so on), highest first.
• The number of overall places per size is a competition setting, with a fallback of three.
• A competition can define its own overall "recipes": each one filters by size, age group, classification and genre, and can require a minimum score or a minimum number of entries before the award is given.
• Overalls can also be taken straight from the director's saved results reports, so the grouping announced on stage is exactly the grouping printed in the report.

Eligibility

• A director can mark any routine as excluded from overalls; it keeps its score and award level but is never placed.
• A competition can mark whole classifications as not eligible for overalls (for example a recreational classification).
• Overall recipes can set a minimum score below which no overall is awarded.

When two routines share an average at a placing boundary, the competition's tie setting decides what happens. How ties are handled.