CAIA staff recently participated in its semi-annual Grader Selection event at which they enjoyed a pizza luncheon while selecting graders for the upcoming September 2011 Grading Event.

As you know, the Level II examination includes three essay questions, the responses to which must be reviewed and scored by graders. Twenty-four graders are needed to complete this task. Graders are organized into teams of two: a senior grader, who has been a previous grader, and a junior grader, a new grader. Each essay response is reviewed independently by both graders in the pair, then they must discuss and agree upon the scores they assigned to each response.

The Grading Event is held at the CAIA Association headquarters in Amherst, Massachusetts. This gives the CAIA members who are selected as graders a chance to visit with CAIA staff and network with other CAIA members/graders. CAIA staff enjoy the chance to meet with CAIA members.
About 20% of CAIA members have expressed interest in grading the examinations on their CAIA website profile. This means the pool of potential graders includes over 1000 members. To be as fair as possible in selecting graders from this pool, the CAIA Association uses a “hat draw.” All names are put into a hat and, after wiping the pizza off their hands, each CAIA staff member draws a name of a CAIA member who will be invited to attend the next Grading Event.

So if you have expressed interest in grading on your CAIA.org User Profile, you might receive an email invitation if your name was part of the lucky draw.  If you would like to indicate your interest in participating in exam grading in the future, you can follow these steps.

• Go to caia.org/preferences.
• Enter your username and password (if you are not already logged in).
• In the “Community” section, use the “Getting Involved” checkboxes to indicate activities (such as exam grading) in which you would like to participate.

This will automatically add your name to the running lists of members interested in all the activities that you select.  CAIA staff use these lists when they are seeking volunteers and may contact you to participate in a particular activity.

In closing, we want to express our appreciation to all previous Grading Event attendees and to those who are eagerly awaiting their first Grading Event invitation. The CAIA Association relies on the dedication, enthusiasm, and professionalism of its volunteer graders to ensure that the CAIA Level II essays are graded properly and fairly and we appreciate that a large number of CAIA members express interest in this activity and recognize its importance.