Nationals is what my dance team looks forward to and works towards every year. We attend ShowStoppers Nationals in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. When attending nationals each dance in judged based off of an age category including 8 and under, 9-11, 12-14, and 15-19. At nationals
there is a panel of four judges that provide a score and comments on each dance. All of the judges scores are added together to provide the dancers with their ranking. The lowest ranking begins with silver, moving on to gold, platinum, double platinum, and the highest ranking of crystal. While everyone wants a crystal ranking, you most get a near perfect score; therefore, crystals are rare. Once the dances are ranked they are placed into an initial top 10 for each age category and group size, small and large. At the end of the week long competition there is a big announcement on who will make it into the Saturday America loves to dance finals. This is determined by taking the top ten scored dances in a particular age and group size without any overlap of dancers. This means that each dancer can only make it into finals one time per an age and size category. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to dance in the finals three times and hoping to make it four this year.