The four-axis judging rubric has been the constitutional document of SIC since S1 in 2011. Every Senior Division entry is scored across the same four dimensions, each weighted equally at 25 points. The rubric is published in advance, and the rubric does not move. What changes is how teams interpret each axis as the season progresses.
Axis 1 · Thesis clarity
Can a non-expert understand the bet in two sentences? This sounds like a writing test. It is. Senior teams that score in the top quartile here almost always treat thesis clarity as the first deliverable, not the last polish. The most common deduction: a thesis that requires three paragraphs of setup before the reader knows what is being claimed.
A useful exercise: write your thesis as if it were the headline of a Bloomberg article. If you cannot fit the bet into a single declarative sentence, the bet is probably not clear enough to defend.
Axis 2 · Evidence quality
Primary sources. 10-Ks, earnings transcripts, Fed minutes, primary research. Not blog summaries, not Reddit threads, not “as reported by.” Each cited number must trace back to a document the judging panel can open in one click.
“If we cannot reach the underlying source in 30 seconds, the citation is decorative. Decorative citations score zero.”
The Editorial Desk publishes the verified-source allowlist before each Regional Stage opens. Teams that work from the allowlist consistently outscore teams who source from secondary aggregators.
Axis 3 · Risk articulation
What would have to be true for this thesis to be wrong? Strong entries answer this in concrete, falsifiable terms. Weak entries answer it in generic hand-waves (“if the macro turns”).
The rubric rewards specificity: name the metric, name the threshold, name the time window. “If gross margin compresses below 38% in two consecutive quarters” is a real risk frame. “If economic conditions deteriorate” is not.
Axis 4 · Revision discipline
Did the team update when facts changed? This is the single axis where teams with the highest year-to-date returns most frequently lose points. The pattern: a team posts strong returns, the original thesis quietly mutates to fit the trajectory, and revision discipline scores collapse.
The fix is procedural, not analytical. Build a weekly check-in cadence before you build the portfolio. Treat each weekly entry as a structured update, not a chance to re-justify.
What this means for S15
The rubric will not change between S15 Regional Stage opening (April 2026) and Global Stage scoring (August 2026). The Editorial Desk will publish two rubric explainers during the season — one mid-Regional and one mid-Global — covering the most common deduction patterns observed in real time.
Teams that internalize the rubric early and revise into it consistently outscore teams who write to the rubric only at submission time.
— SIC Editorial Desk · S15 rubric note