Roles and Responsibilities
Advisor
Each team is required to have an advisor, who must be a teacher/educator employed by the high school of their student’s team.
A single advisor can support multiple teams, but the student cannot change teams during the competition. An advisor can oversee up to five teams. However, there is no limit to the number of competing teams per school.
An advisor is responsible for registering their team. Students are NOT permitted to register for the competition on their own behalf or on behalf of their team. If this rule is violated, the team will not be permitted to compete.
The use of paid advisors, educational consultants, or other agents is prohibited. Similarly, participants may not enroll in any non-Wharton, extracurricular “course” (online or in-person) claiming to “teach” the Wharton High School Data Science Competition. Teams suspected by the Wharton School of using paid advisors, education consultants, extracurricular coursework, or other agents will be disqualified from the competition. The Wharton School may enlist its employees, third-party private investigatory firms, and/or forensic analysts to ensure that all teams are competing fairly and in compliance with the restrictions noted above.
Teams are not permitted to change their advisor. If a team needs to change their advisor due to extenuating circumstances, a written request must first be submitted to and approved by the Wharton High School Data Science Competition staff (data-comp@wharton.upenn.edu). Teams attempting to change their advisor without submitting a written request may be eliminated from the competition.
Teams
Each team must maintain a minimum of three team members and a maximum of five members from the very start of the competition.
All team members must be enrolled in the same school (with the exception of home-schooled students)
Each team will have one designated student team leader who must be at least 16 years old at the start of the competition in order to comply with the terms of use of SurveyMonkey Apply. The student team leader is responsible for the following:
- Serving as a main point of contact for your team. All communications and notifications will be sent to you and the team advisor.
- Submitting answers for the Phases of competition.
- Leading your teammates to success. Each team will select one student to serve as their team leader and represent their team in all communications with the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative.
- Teams may also assign additional duties to the team leader (such as coordinating meeting times) however they wish.
- Fulfilling all the responsibilities of a regular team member, as listed below.
Student Team Members
Student team members are responsible for the following:
- Developing your team’s plan and methodology. Your advisor serves as a guide for your team, but students are the competitors.
- Conducting deep analysis of the data and exploring mathematical approaches to the challenge.
- Learning new concepts, where necessary, with the help of a teacher-advisor and/or through the Online Learning Materials for Students shared during the competition.
- Staying engaged and meeting deliverable deadlines.
If your team is approved for competition, we will ask you to provide your team members’ names and your team name at any time up until February 3. We recommend completing this step as soon as you have formed your team. Failure to report your team composition and team name by February 3 will result in competition delays.
Teams should choose their own names and have fun with it. Please use good judgment. Team names that use offensive or vulgar language, as determined by the Wharton School in its sole discretion, may be automatically disqualified. The Wharton School reserves the right to contact teams to mandate changes in team names that it deems inappropriate.