Counselor intelligence brief
Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
A working database for advising JSHS candidates: what it is, who it fits, how students advance, what awards are at stake, which region owns the process, and what needs verification before anyone spends months polishing a paper.
Snapshot date: 2026-05-16. Built from the ICS listing, public JSHS pages, regional host pages, search-indexed core-rule excerpts, and M5 Pro synthesis.
1. Current Status
Returned, site still updating
The official JSHS homepage now says JSHS has officially returned and that the website is being updated. Some legacy URLs and file links still redirect to a suspended/returning announcement, so counselor-facing data should preserve last-verified dates and source confidence.
What still appears stable
- Program: free, individual STEM research competition for grades 9-12.
- Sponsor: Department of Defense through Army, Navy, and Air Force support.
- Administration: National Science Teaching Association.
- Path: written research submission, regional symposium, national symposium.
Competition type
Research
Submission plus oral or poster presentation.
Student level
9-12
High school students in the U.S., territories, and DoDEA schools.
Cost
Free
National Symposium is described as all-expenses paid for invited finalists.
2. Regional Deadline Intelligence
This is now a source-aware deadline layer, not just a routing table. Current 2026 rows are separated from archival rows so counselors can distinguish usable dates from timing clues.
Current 2026 rows
5
Regions with current or replacement-event data.
Archival rows
4
Useful for cadence, not direct planning.
Confidence model
3 levels
High, medium, and stale/verify before use.
| Region | Cycle | Student deadline | Event date | Format notes | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Great Plains Oklahoma State University Honors College | 2026 current regional page | 2026-01-30 | 2026-02-20 | Oral presentations only; no poster session at the regional competition. | high |
| DoDEA Europe DoDEA Europe JSHS | 2026 current regional page | 2026-01-08 | 2026-02-25 to 2026-02-27 | Project submission requires paper, abstract, and Statement of Outside Assistance. | high |
| Connecticut CT AHEC / UConn Health | 2026 replacement event | 2025-12-15 | 2026-02-28 | Connecticut High School Science and Humanities Symposium, nearly identical to prior CT JSHS process. | high |
| New York Upstate Rochester Institute of Technology | 2026 mixed-year page | 2025-12-04 | 2025 page references February 1 regional event; verify 2026 event date | Abstract registration deadline; page describes 48 oral and 24 poster competitors for in-person regional event. | medium |
| Tennessee Listed through JSHS regional page | 2026 TBD | TBD | TBD | Regional page says 2026 information and dates will be posted in fall 2025. | medium |
| Arkansas Arkansas Tech University | 2025 archival regional page | 2025-01-22 oral; 2025-02-07 poster/post-deadline oral | 2025-02-21 to 2025-02-22 | Oral and poster routes; post-deadline oral presenters remain eligible for poster prizes. | medium |
| Wyoming and Colorado University of Wyoming | 2025 archival regional page | 2025-02-08 | 2025-03-01 | Virtual regional symposium; abstract and research paper emailed as a single PDF plus online registration. | medium |
| Northern California San Francisco State University | 2025 archival regional page | Application/submission opening listed as 2024-11-16; verify exact deadline | Acceptance decisions listed as 2025-02-02 | Regional host page with application timeline and category details. | medium |
| Southern California California State University Long Beach | 2025 archival regional page | Proposal deadline listed but source snippet truncates exact date; verify on live page | Verify on live page | 250-word abstract with 1-inch margins, single spaced, 12-point Times New Roman, header fields for title, author, school, and mentor/sponsor. | medium |
3. Fit and Eligibility
The advising question is not just "is the student smart?" It is whether the student has an original, defensible STEM research story and a region with an active pathway.
Quick fit check
Four filters. No data leaves the browser.
Best-fit student
- Already has a completed or near-complete STEM research investigation.
- Can explain methods, limitations, and why the result matters.
- Can turn a written paper into a clear 12-minute research talk.
- Has mentor, teacher, or lab context available for documentation.
Weak-fit student
- Only has a science fair display, not a paper-ready research argument.
- Needs a credential on a tight senior-year deadline.
- Cannot verify region deadlines or active 2026 participation.
- Has a team project but no single presenter ready to own the work.
4. Rules Matrix
A counselor-facing extraction of the core rules that determine eligibility, compliance risk, and whether the project should be routed to JSHS at all.
| Rule field | Rule | Counselor check | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grade eligibility | Students in grades 9-12 may participate through their regional symposium. | Confirm grade level and whether the student is enrolled in public, private, home, online, DoDEA, or territory school context. | high |
| Region assignment | Students may compete in only one regional symposium. School address determines the region, except the Virtual Region; online high school students compete where they reside. | Resolve region before working on deadlines because region pages control submission mechanics. | high |
| Citizenship | Student must be a U.S. citizen or Lawful Permanent Resident. Indexed 2025-2026 rules also include Legal Permanent Residents of American Samoa. | Ask early and verify edge cases with the Regional Director. | high |
| Research window | Research must have been conducted within the calendar year before the regional event. | For continuation projects, identify which work is genuinely new inside the eligible window. | high |
| Continuation projects | Prior work may continue only with significant new research, expanded methodology or variables, and explicit discussion of revisions to experimentation, analysis, methodology, and data. | Require a one-paragraph continuation statement before drafting. | high |
| Allowed project origins | Class projects, science fair projects, and summer research projects may be submitted if they report original research. | The venue is flexible on origin but strict on student ownership and original investigation. | high |
| Ineligible project types | Demonstrations, library research, literature reviews, and informational projects are not appropriate. | Convert demo-builds into hypothesis-driven tests or route elsewhere. | high |
| Required materials | Regional applications usually require a written report, abstract or abstract plus paper, Statement of Outside Assistance, and Ideal-Logic completion by the regional deadline. | Build a region-specific document checklist, because regions vary in abstract-only versus abstract-plus-paper review. | high |
| Outside assistance | Assistance from teachers, mentors, parents, or other students may be obtained, but the student must clearly communicate their own role and understand the results. | Audit mentor-heavy lab projects for student contribution before submission. | high |
| Same-project advancement | If the student advances to National JSHS, the same project from the regional event must be presented. | Do not plan a national pivot; polish the regional project instead. | high |
5. Competition Path
JSHS is regional first. The national opportunity is earned through the local region, and the first routing task is finding the correct regional host.
-
Stage 1
Find the student's region
Students begin by identifying the competing region assigned to their school or location. Region pages control deadlines, application details, and local symposium format.
-
Stage 2
Submit original research
The student submits an original, independent research paper. Cached 2025-2026 rules indicate abstract, paper, outside assistance, research-integrity, and human/animal-subject rules matter.
-
Stage 3
Compete at the Regional Symposium
Top submissions are invited to present at their Regional Symposium. Regional events use national score sheets for oral and poster judging.
-
Stage 4
Advance to National JSHS
The top five participants at each region advance. The top two present orally at nationals, while third through fifth present posters.
6. Awards and Advancement Model
The award structure is easy to misstate. Keep regional scholarships separate from national oral scholarships and national poster cash awards.
Regional
Regional oral winners
- 1st place: $2,000 scholarship
- 2nd place: $1,500 scholarship
- 3rd place: $1,000 scholarship
Top five regional participants advance to National JSHS; top two are national oral presenters and third through fifth are national poster presenters.
National oral
Top two regional delegates compete as oral presenters
- 1st place: $12,000 scholarship
- 2nd place: $8,000 scholarship
- 3rd place: $4,000 scholarship
Highest-prestige JSHS outcome; requires both research rigor and polished live defense.
National poster
Regional places three through five compete as poster presenters
- 1st place: $550 cash award
- 2nd place: $450 cash award
- 3rd place: $350 cash award
Still a national-level research presentation credential, usually less selective than oral placement.
ICS describes more than $400,000 in scholarships and cash awards across regional and national levels.
7. Research Category Intelligence
Use these as advising buckets, then verify the current sub-discipline list with live JSHS rules or the Regional Director.
Biomedical Sciences / Medicine and Health
Strong signals
- Mechanism-linked hypothesis
- Clear controls and measurable outcomes
- IRB or ethics readiness for human-subject data
- Ability to explain clinical relevance without overstating impact
Likely judge questions
- Why this endpoint?
- What confounders remain?
- How was bias controlled?
Risk flags
- Retrospective data with no clear student-owned analysis
- Medical claims beyond the evidence
- Human-subject ambiguity
Computer Science and Mathematics
Strong signals
- Algorithm is evaluated against a meaningful research question
- Baseline comparisons
- Error analysis
- Transparent dataset construction
Likely judge questions
- What is the baseline?
- How does performance change out-of-sample?
- What failure modes did you inspect?
Risk flags
- Demo app with no experiment
- Black-box model use without understanding
- Accuracy-only evaluation
Engineering and Technology
Strong signals
- Problem constraints are explicit
- Prototype tested under repeatable conditions
- Design tradeoffs are quantified
- Failure modes are documented
Likely judge questions
- What design alternatives did you reject?
- How did you test reliability?
- What metric defines success?
Risk flags
- Invention-as-showcase without controlled testing
- No comparison against existing approach
- Aesthetic prototype without data
Environmental Science
Strong signals
- Field or sensor data with defensible sampling
- Spatial/temporal limitations acknowledged
- Policy or ecosystem relevance grounded in results
- Good handling of noisy measurements
Likely judge questions
- How representative is your sample?
- What seasonal effects matter?
- How did you calibrate instruments?
Risk flags
- One-time sampling overgeneralized
- Map or dashboard without hypothesis
- Correlation presented as causation
Life Sciences
Strong signals
- Biological mechanism is stated
- Replicates and controls are visible
- Methods are reproducible
- Statistics fit the experiment
Likely judge questions
- Why this organism/model?
- What is the control condition?
- How many replicates?
Risk flags
- Small n without caveat
- Protocol copied without rationale
- Result described but not interpreted
Physical Sciences / Chemistry
Strong signals
- Quantitative measurement
- Uncertainty and calibration discussed
- Clear theory-to-experiment connection
- Appropriate safety and materials handling
Likely judge questions
- What is your measurement uncertainty?
- How did you calibrate?
- What does theory predict?
Risk flags
- Unsafe materials without oversight
- No uncertainty estimate
- Pretty reaction or device with shallow analysis
8. Regional Host Database
Search by region, host institution, or assignment hint. This is a routing table, not a deadline table. Region deadlines should be verified from the active regional page or director.
| Region | Host institution | Assignment hint |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Alabama Junior Academy of Science | AL |
| Alaska | University of Alaska Fairbanks | AK |
| Arizona | The University of Southern Mississippi | AZ |
| Arkansas | Arkansas Tech University | AR |
| California Northern | San Francisco State University | Northern CA |
| California Southern | California State University Long Beach | Southern CA |
| Chicago | Loyola University Chicago | Chicago area |
| Connecticut | University of Connecticut Health Center | CT |
| DoDEA Europe | Department of Defense Education Activity - Europe | DoDEA Europe |
| DoDEA Pacific | Department of Defense Education Activity - Pacific | DoDEA Pacific |
| Florida | University of Florida Center for Precollegiate Education and Training | FL |
| Georgia | University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education and Hotel | GA |
| Great Plains | Oklahoma State University Honors College | Great Plains |
| Greater Washington, D.C. | The Catholic University of America | DC area |
| Hawaii and Pacific | Hawai'i Academy of Science | HI and Pacific |
| Heartland | University of Iowa | Heartland |
| Illinois | Southern Illinois University Carbondale | Illinois outside Chicago |
| Indiana | The University of Indianapolis | IN |
| Intermountain | Utah State University | Intermountain |
| Kentucky | University of Louisville Research Foundation | KY |
| Louisiana | Louisiana Tech | LA |
| Maryland | The Patuxent Partnership | MD |
| Michigan | Wayne State University | MI |
| Mississippi | The University of Southern Mississippi | MS |
| Missouri | University of Missouri | MO |
| New England Northern | University of Maine | Northern New England |
| New England Southern | Roger Williams University | Southern New England |
| New Jersey Northern | Rutgers University | Northern NJ |
| New Jersey Southern | Ocean County College | Southern NJ |
| New York-Long Island | York College/CUNY | Long Island |
| New York-Metro | York College/CUNY | NY Metro |
| New York-Upstate | Rochester Institute of Technology | Upstate NY |
| North Carolina | University of North Carolina Charlotte | NC |
| North Central | Augustana University | North Central |
| Ohio | Capital University | OH |
| Oregon | The University of Southern Mississippi | OR |
| Pennsylvania | Juniata College | PA |
| Philadelphia and Delaware | Temple University | Philadelphia and DE |
| Puerto Rico | The Intellexi Foundation | PR |
| South Carolina | University of South Carolina | SC |
| Southwest | The University of Southern Mississippi | Southwest |
| Tennessee | University of Tennessee Knoxville | TN |
| Texas | Texas A&M University | TX |
| Virginia | Longwood University | VA |
| Virtual | The University of Southern Mississippi | Virtual |
| Washington | The University of Southern Mississippi | WA |
| West Virginia | West Virginia Wesleyan College | WV |
| Wisconsin/Upper Peninsula Michigan | Carthage College | WI and Upper Peninsula MI |
| Wyoming and Colorado | University of Wyoming | WY and CO |
9. Historical Winner Signals
This is the beginning of a winner-pattern corpus: public national and regional results converted into advising signals rather than just names.
2024 · NSTA national press release
62nd National JSHS hosted May 1-4, 2024 in Albuquerque with 241 competing high school students and more than $200,000 in scholarships and cash awards.
Use to calibrate national scale and competition seriousness.
2024 · Southwest regional winners page
Winning regional titles included smoke-plume tracking, biocompatible nanomaterials, propeller development, fall-detection assistive device, and other applied STEM projects.
Shows that computational, materials, engineering, and assistive-tech work can fit when framed as research.
2024 · Arizona regional results
Top projects included automated bird recognition, antimicrobial bioplastics, intestinal epithelial wound healing, stroke rehabilitation exoskeleton, and autonomous-driving fairness.
Useful category spread for project ideation and category fit.
2024 · Louisiana regional results
Caddo Magnet filled all five national slots, with projects spanning transfusion-related hemolysis ML, antibodies, electrolytic cells, demographic disparities in women's health, and kidney-cancer classification.
Shows school-pipeline concentration can happen at regional level.
10. Student Readiness Rubric
A scoring backbone for deciding whether a student is not ready, regionally viable, or plausibly national-contender material.
| Criterion | Regional-ready | National-ready | Red flag |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original research question | Question is testable and has completed data. | Question has significance beyond a class exercise and can survive technical probing. | Demonstration, literature review, or informational project. |
| Methods rigor | Methods are described clearly enough for a judge to follow. | Controls, variables, sampling, and limitations are defensible. | Student cannot explain why a method was chosen. |
| Analysis quality | Results are visualized and interpreted. | Statistical or computational analysis matches the research design and includes error/uncertainty thinking. | Only screenshots, raw tables, or accuracy claims. |
| Student ownership | Student can state their contribution and outside assistance. | Student can answer detailed questions without leaning on mentor authority. | Mentor/lab did the technical core. |
| Compliance readiness | SOA and any human/animal/safety approvals are identified. | All compliance questions are documented before submission. | Human-subject data, vertebrate animals, or hazardous materials with unclear approval. |
| Presentation readiness | Student can deliver a clear timed talk or poster walkthrough. | Student can handle adversarial Q&A on assumptions, controls, and next steps. | Memorized script with fragile understanding. |
11. Counselor Playbook
First intake questions
- What region owns the student's school or residence?
- Is the region accepting submissions this cycle?
- What is the exact deadline and required paper format?
- Was the project individual or team-based?
- What approvals, if any, were needed before data collection?
Prep sequence
- Confirm live regional status.
- Audit paper against core rules and region-specific instructions.
- Build a concise talk from the research question outward.
- Run technical Q&A drills on methods, statistics, limitations, and student contribution.
- Prepare poster version in case the student advances as a national poster presenter.
Highest-leverage warning
Treat region pages and directors as the operative source for deadlines until the national site is fully rebuilt.
12. Source Confidence Layer
Every major fact class now carries a confidence note so stale regional pages do not get treated like current rules.
Official national JSHS homepage
Confidence: high for current program status, low for detailed rules while pages are being rebuilt
Use for returned/suspended status and official contact posture.
Last checked: 2026-05-16
Indexed 2025-2026 core rules excerpts
Confidence: high for rule language surfaced in search snippets, medium because direct PDF URL currently redirects
Use for core eligibility and submission mechanics, with verification caveat.
Last checked: 2026-05-16
Regional host pages
Confidence: high when page is current for 2026, medium when mixed-year or archival
Use for deadlines and format details after checking cycle year.
Last checked: 2026-05-16
ICS listing
Confidence: medium
Use for stable public overview, awards, sponsor, and eligibility summary. Verify against official/regional pages for current deadlines.
Last checked: 2026-05-16
Press releases and regional winner pages
Confidence: medium to high depending on publisher
Use for historical pattern analysis, not current rules.
Last checked: 2026-05-16
13. Resources
ICS competition listing
Useful public overview with eligibility, process, awards, contact, and managing organization.
JSHS current rules page
Official rules page to re-check as the returned JSHS site is rebuilt.
Regional host institutions
Historical/current host list surfaced by search and site content. Verify before routing a student.
Core rules of competition
Official rules hub when the site is active. Search results reference a 2025-2026 PDF.
Find your region
Student-facing region routing page when active.
JSHS contact
Use for live-status, deadline, and region questions while the site is being rebuilt.