SELECTION

I. The 2010 selection
The 2010 selection process for the Jean-Pictet Competition is now over. All teams that have applied have received an email with the results of the selection process. Yet, in case of the withdrawal of a selected team, another team can still be contacted to replace it. This year, the Committee for the Jean-Pictet Competition (CJPC) received 87 applications from 47 countries. The selection was again difficult, because only 48 teams were to be selected.

II. Methods of selection
Upon reception of teams’ documents composing their applications, the Administrator sent them to the CJPC members responsible for the selection process. Prior to sending them, the Administrator made the files anonymous, so the CJPC members did not know who they were assessing.

a. First stage of selection
During the first stage of assessment, marks have been given to each answer to the three tests, as well as to the motivation letters and CV of applicants. Then, the final mark of each team was calculated on the basis of the average of the points given for each test and for the motivation letters and CV.
According to those marks, the CJPC determined which teams were immediately selected, which were not and those subject to a second round in order to select the requested number of teams (48).
The application files of the latter were sent to another group of CJPC members responsible for the second round/appeal process. No ranking or marks were transmitted to them.

b. Second stage of selection
Persons responsible for the appeal process assessed the applications of teams subject to the second round of review and gave them marks according to the same methods and criteria used in the first stage of selection.
Those marks were sent to the Administrator who compiled the results so as to determine which teams were at the top of the list for this second stage. Among those teams, a final selection was made additionally taking into account the geographical origin of the teams in order to increase the diversity among the teams and to comply with the CJPC’s criterion of universality.

III. Criteria of assessment
Besides the overall quality of the application file and the legal and writing quality of teams’ answers to tests 1 to 3, the concerned members of the CJPC also assessed the motivation of the teams as well as the background of each participant.
The fact that a team applied for the Universality Fund was in no way taken into account. Indeed, the requests for support from the Universality Fund were not sent to the persons responsible for the selection; they were sent to other members of the CJPC who examined the requests after the selection was made and announced to the teams.

IV. Results of the selection process
The graph below shows you the scale of the average marks given to the 59 teams that applied to the the English-speaking session:

Results are anonymous.
Each bar represents a team and the average marks it has been given.
You will also find below for your information the graphs for the teams applying to the French-speaking session:

V. Examples of correct answers to the tests (due to confidentiality, the CJPC does not post online examples of a good CV or motivation letter. However, please note that a clearly formulated and presented CV and a neat letter of motivation are given more points than a vague CV of just a few lines and a laconic motivation letter)
These are examples and neither the only correct or best answers.