Administering the Contest:

• Essays may either be uploaded individually or in bulk.
• The cover sheet must be in front of each essay. 
• If uploading individual essays, create separate PDFs of each essay
• If uploading in bulk, create PDF files of all essays in a particular category and level (e.g., A1, B3, etc.). Make sure that the cover letter is the first page of each essay.
• Enter the Essay site.
• Click on "Upload Essays."
• If uploading individually, enter each student's name, category and level, and indicate whether or not the student's essay can be used for research.
• ​If uploading in bulk, select the "bulk upload" button.​

Student Categories and Levels

CRITERIA FOR CATEGORIES AND LEVELS [NEWLY REVISED FOR 2022]

STUDENTS OTHER THAN HERITAGE SPEAKERS

Category A: Students who do not and did not ever speak Russian or any other Slavic language at home, in the community.
 
Category B: Native or heritage speakers of a Slavic language other than Russian and of languages of the former Soviet Union who might have had minimal prior experience with Russian, i.e., have not regularly spoken or heard Russian and did not take Russian language classes at school, but may have been exposed to TV, internet, radio or other community-based content in Russian. 
 
Students of Russian heritage who did not grow up speaking Russian with their families, but who have been exposed to hearing Russian at home and have at least some listening comprehension skills that distinguish them from non-heritage novice L2 learners. These students can understand a variety of basic questions (about themselves, their immediate environment), but cannot maintain a conversation in Russian; their answers are limited to isolated words or phrases. They do not have any reading or writing skills before college. 

The LEVELS for Categories A and B are based on the number of contact hours of formal Russian language instruction at the time of the essay contest, including high school:

• Level One (A1, B1): fewer than 100 contact hours of instruction in Russian
• Level Two (A2, B2): 100-250 contact hours of instruction (2nd-year Russian)
• Level Three (A3, B3): 250-400 contact hours of instruction (3rd-/4th-year Russian)
• Level Four (A4, B4): more than 400 contact hours of instruction (4th-/5th-year Russian)​

Category C: Students with pre-college experience with Russian (heritage speakers and students from the FSU with more than minimal prior language experience)

• Level One: Students who speak at least some Russian with their family, who have not had any formal Russian language instruction at community schools, dual immersion programs or through private tutoring before college. These students have no or minimal reading or writing skills before college and have had one semester or less of Russian instruction in college (fewer than 60 contact hours) at the time of the essay.
• Level Two: Students who grew up speaking Russian with family and/or in the community, who have not had any formal Russian language instruction at community schools, dual immersion programs or private tutoring before college, but who learned how to read before college. Despite their reading skills, these students cannot write grammatically and at the time of the essay contest have had one semester or less of Russian instruction in college (fewer than 60 contact hours). This level also includes students described in Level One who have had two semesters of Russian language instruction (between 80 and and 120 contact hours).
• Level Three: Students who regularly speak Russian with their families and/or in the community, who might have up to three years of formal Russian language instruction at a community school, in a dual immersion program, in Russian language classes at school in one of the post-Soviet states (excluding the Russian Federation) or through private tutoring before college. These students would typically have between 60 and 120 contact hours of Russian instruction in college. This level also includes students described in Levels One and Two who have had between three and four semesters of Russian instruction in college.
• Level Four: Students who regularly speak Russian with their families and/or in the community, and who have had more than 3 years of formal Russian language instruction at a community school, in a dual immersion program, in Russian language classes at school in FSU (excluding the Russian Federation), or through private tutoring before college, or who have placed into an upper-level Russian language course based on their advanced reading and writing skills developed with no pre-college formal instruction. This level also includes students described in Levels One, Two and Three who have had more than 4 semesters of Russian instruction in college.
• Level Five: Students who speak Russian with their families, and who attended a Russian language school in the Russian Federation or other post-Soviet states for up to 5 years.​
• Level Six: Students who speak Russian with their families, and who attended a Russian language school in the Russian Federation or other post-Soviet states for more than 5 years.