• Although extremely rare, there have been occasions where an examinee felt the assigned score was unreasonably low. In these cases, the following policy applies:

    How to File a Protest

    An examinee not satisfied with their assigned score may file a grading protest with the Exam Director responsible for the exam in question. This protest must be filed within three months of the exam scores being transmitted to the examinee. The protesting examinee should identify a basis for the protest, the date and location of the exam, and their examinee ID. The protest should be transmitted by email to the Exam Director of record.

    Protest Process

    1. The primary Exam Director who handled the exam in question will forward the protested exam to an independent Exam Director (current or former) to conduct an external review, and will notify the BJCP Exam Administrator that the exam has been protested.

    2. The primary Exam Director will contact the protesting examinee about the process, and will also regrade the exam. The primary Exam Director will copy the protesting examinee's BJCP Regional Representative on all correspondence with the protesting examinee.

    3. The independent Exam Director will grade the exam, assign a score, and prepare a new Report to Participant (RTP).

    4. The primary Exam Director will review the results of the independent Exam Director's review (RTP and score), as well as his own detailed assessment. If a new score is warranted, the primary Exam Director will assign it and then direct the BJCP Exam Administrator to change the score in the database and to reprocess the exam closeout for the protesting examinee, including transmitting the new RTP and score.

    5. Should the protesting examinee have additional concerns, the protester should contact their BJCP Regional Representative.

    This process should generally be completed within approximately two months.

    Note: The exam grading process, while not perfect, is very rigorous. Two National or higher ranked judges grade each exam, which is then reviewed by an Associate Exam Director and an Exam Director (often these graders are Grand Master judges).

    Historically, most protests do not result in significant increases to assigned scores, and may result in a lower score.