How Do Judges Score Beauty Pageants?

There is probably no area of pageant competition that is more confusing, frustrating and misunderstood than pageant scoring.

Pageants can be lots of fun because you get to have your hair and makeup done in an over-the-top glamorous way and wear one-of-a-kind evening gowns that you'd never get to wear any place other than a Hollywood red carpet. And, you get to strut your stuff on a giant stage, modeling fabulous fashions or performing your beloved talent for an appreciative audience. For those that come alive under the spotlight, love to entertain others and just generally enjoy the performance aspect of participating in pageants, it can be an intoxicating experience like no other!

But, after all is said and done, pageants are also a competition where the subtle details of our overall performance are filtered down into a measured result and assigned a quantitative score. And, it's that solitary score that seals our fate and ultimately determines how we place in the pageant.

No doubt, if you have been participating in pageants for any length of time, you have had the experience of being given a score or even a judge's personal assessment of you, and you either did not understand why you received the score or the feedback you got, or you strongly disagreed with it. We have all been through this experience and sad to say, it is without question, one of the most painful parts of the process. We all know in our hearts that another person's critique of our performance is often based on personal preference, and we also know that we should never allow the opinion of a total stranger to determine our own view of our self worth. We understand from a rational perspective that the judging process in pageantry is a subjective experience at best. It's not exactly the same kind of scoring system involved in a sport like figure skating where an athlete knows whether or not she has completed a double toe loop or a triple. Even in sport competitions, the judges are examining the performance closely for required skills and techniques, but they still assign scores based on their own individual interpretation of those skills and techniques. It is what it is. It's not a perfect system, “no system is,” but it's what we've got to work with.