The Miss America competition judging system is designed to promote diversity, individuality and overall achievement among all contestants.
Judges score the individual contestants immediately following each phase of the competition.
The preliminary panel chooses the Top Ten Miss America finalists and is comprised of seven judges. The second panel of judges consists of renowned, qualified celebrities who select Miss America from these Top Ten finalists during the evening of the live telecast. Following the last preliminary competition, the preliminary panel of judges will be given a list of the top 15 contestants in no particular order. The judges will then determine, through a yes or no process, the Top 10 Semi-Finalists. Each judge will use the phases of competition in conjunction with the Qualities and Attributes of Miss America and the Job Description of Miss America as a basis of their scoring analysis.