State Career Development Conference

Competitor Eligibility

• Only students that are competing at the State Conference may attend the conference.
• Competitors in the Individual Series Events, Team Decision Making events, Principles events, Personal Financial Literacy event, Financial Consulting event, Hospitality & Tourism Professional Selling event, Professional Selling event, and the five (5) Pitch Deck events (Innovation Plan, Integrated Marketing Campaign-Event, Integrated Marketing Campaign-Product, Integrated Marketing Campaign-Service, and Start-Up Business Plan) must qualify at the District Conference in order to compete at the State Conference.

Competitive Event Information

• Comprehensive Exams will be administered in-person at the State Conference during the event’s orientation on Thursday. The three Integrated Marketing Campaign events will take their test on Friday at 10:00am.  For competitors with a school-related reason for not attending the orientation on Thursday, there will be makeup test times available on Friday at 10:00am or 3:00pm. Chapter Advisors will need to submit the form to request a reschedule of testing for each competitor. All competitors must have a photo ID.
• Delegates may not enter more than one event, which exceptions for  the Gold Merit Award Program, Chapter Awards Program, and School Based Enterprise – and only if competition days and times do not conflict.
• All Prepared (written paper) Events and Pitch Deck Events will compete on Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
• The Individual Series Events, Principles Events, Team Decision Making Events, Selling Events, School Based Enterprise, Leadership and Teamwork, and the Ethics Team Event will compete Friday.
• Individual Series Events, Principles Events, Team Decision Making Events will have two (2) judged activities.
• Stock Market Game and the Virtual Business Challenge Event participants will not compete at the State Conference. Those named as qualifiers in these events will proceed directly to the International Career Development Conference, through the process established by DECA Inc. These students will not attend the State Conference unless they are competing in another event.
• School Based Enterprise qualifiers can proceed directly to the International Career Development Conference, through the process established by DECA Inc.  Chapters that receive the Gold Certification or Gold Re-Certification have the option to bring 1 to 2 student manager(s) to compete with their presentation at the State Conference on Friday morning.  Students may compete in another competitive event, that competes on Thursday or Friday Afternoon. Refer to the SCDC Competition Schedule for the list.

Competitive Event Cancellation Policy

For the events that Qualified at the District Conference –  if one member cannot attend the next level of competition, no one may be substituted in his or her place, and the remaining team member CANNOT move into another event. The students qualified as a team, so they must either compete as a team, or cancel as a team – and not advance to the next level of competition. The chapter Advisor must submit the Qualifier Not Attending form by February 1st so the alternate can be called up to compete in place of the qualifying team.

For All Prepared (written) Events, team members may NOT be substituted between the State and International Conference. Teams are allowed to have members drop out of the competition, with the remaining members allowed to compete at the State or International Conferences.

Competition Items

Each participant is expected to have a pen or pencil and a calculator for competition.  Other items (workbooks, notebooks, handouts, etc.) are not allowed. Cell phones, smartphones, smartwatches, iPads, iPods, AirPods/wireless or wired earbuds, PDAs, programmable calculators, and graphing calculators may not be used or worn during competition, which includes during online testing, prep-time, waiting for judges, and during competition in role-play events.

Prepared (written paper) Events and Pitch Deck Events

All Prepared Events and Pitch Deck Events will compete on Thursday from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.  Prepared Event participants will have their orientation at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday.  There will be one interview with one or two judges.   All prepared event participants are required to take either the math or economics evaluation.

All prepared events (except the Chapter Awards Program) will need to be uploaded to the Chapter Registration Portal between February 9-17, 2026.  Complete instructions on how to upload projects have been posted on the Prepared Event webpage.

Students will not be able to use the hotel or convention center internet for their event presentations, because that would involve asking someone else to help them with their equipment. (Refer to the event’s presentation guidelines.) You may use a personal hotspot with your own computer/phone if you have one. But we caution that it could be difficult to receive and maintain a connection due to so many people using cell phones while at the conference. If you lose connection, you will not be given additional time. Our suggestion is to save anything that you might want to reference directly onto the computer.

Applied Certification Exams

Delegates are required to take one of the following exams on Friday.  (Students have the option to take all if desired.)  A certificate will be awarded to those who achieve minimum proficiency on each exam.  The top ten participants on each test will receive special recognition.

• Applied Economics Certification Exam
• Applied Marketing Mathematics Certification Exam
• Ethics Certification Exam

Certificates of Excellence

Michigan DECA will issue Certificates of Excellence to all competitors that receive an average score above 70% during competition. The certificates will be mailed to chapter advisers several weeks after the conference.