Judges

Students come from both public and private schools in the city of Chicago, suburban Cook, Lake, and DuPage Counties. They are in grades 6–8 (Junior Division) and grades 9–12 (Senior Division).

While there are no formal requirements, a volunteer History Day judge has an interest in history, a commitment to support student work, and a willingness to give constructive feedback. Our diverse pool of volunteer judges includes teachers, retired and active business persons, nonprofit organization staff, graduate students, professors, and parents.

• You do not need to be an expert in history, but you should feel comfortable evaluating student research and arguments.
• Novice judges are paired with veteran judges.
• We can assign you to the category that best suits you: read text and images in exhibitions or websites; listen and watch performances or documentary films; or read historical research papers.
• You will need to be comfortable with basic online computer-based tasks such as opening and sending email attachments, viewing multimedia links, filling out online forms, etc.

No, but all judges must view a judging orientation prior to the contest or on the day of the contest. Viewing the orientation is required for returning judges as well as new judges.

The general procedure for judging any History Day project is:

• Receive the orientation.
• Each volunteer is assigned a partner and projects to judge.
• Judges evaluate projects.
• They confer with their partner and then write final evaluations.

Volunteer History Day judges view student projects at the CMHD Regional Contests. The student projects evaluated for History Day have been selected by their schools as their top projects. Projects selected at CMHD Regional Contests have an opportunity to advance to Illinois History Day (state), and National History Day contests.

The 2026 Chicago Metro History Day – Senior Division Regional Contest will be held Saturday, February 28, 2026, at the University of Illinois Chicago Student Cetner East, 720 S. Halsted Street.

The 2026 Chicago Metro History Day – Junior Division Regional Contest will be held Saturday, March 7, 2026 at the University of Illinois Chicago Student Center East, 720 S. Halsted Street.

Please give us as much notice as possible by emailing us at historyday@chicagohistory.org. Different judge attendance affects the quality of the experience for your fellow volunteers as well as the students. Please sign up for the day(s) you will commit to judging rather than to the days in which you may be available.

If you know someone who would enjoy judging, please forward them the information to sign up through zFairs. Be aware that we cannot assign friends/spouses to judge together as it unintentionally blurs the evaluations, and therefore can affect students, who are our main concern. We ask that you respect the assignment given to you and consider that you and your friend will have twice as much to share when you meet up again after judging your projects!

Chicago Metro History Day judges are responsible for working with their judging teammates to arrive at a consensus ranking of the projects that they view. Based on these rankings and the capacity at the next level of competition, CMHD will determine which projects will advance and notify the students.

We will hold a virtual award ceremony after the regional contests have concluded. We will also post the results on our website.