The Governor's Cup Challenge is organized by Georgia High school Association (GHSA) class and region assignments to allow schools to be compared against similarly sized schools within the same region of the state. The GHSA divides schools into five classes (i.e. A, AA, AAA, AAAA, and AAAAA) with each class having eight regions.

The Governor's Cup Challenge calculates average three-year gains made by schools on their most recent SAT in both the critical reading and math sections. Three years worth of scores are used to promote on-going improvement in student performance on the SAT. Beginning in the 2007-2008 school year, writing scores will also be used in the calculation formula.

Within each GHSA region of each class, the school that has the greatest average gain in the most recent total SAT score over the previous three years will be selected as a regional winner. This qualifies 40 schools (5 classes x 8 regions) as regional winners.

Furthermore, regional winners of each class will then be compared against one another by their average SAT gains to determine five class winners.

Eligibility Rules:

1. High schools must be a current member of the Georgia High School Association.
2. High schools must have scores from at least 20 seniors reflected in the school's SAT* average for both the current year and two previous years.

Procedure to identify winning schools:

1. SAT scores for seniors will be averaged for each school.
2. At least 20 seniors' scores must be reflected in the school's SAT most recent average for the current and two previous years.
3. An average gain based on three years of highest SAT scores will determine the winners.
4. Highest-scoring schools will compete in their respective Class and Region for the same period as the academic year in which SAT scores are accrued. There are 5 Classes and each Class has 8 Regions.
5. The school in each Region with the largest 3-year average gain will be selected to compete in the Class level competition.
6. From the 8 Region winners within a Class, the school with the largest 3-year average gain will be selected as the Class-level winner.

* SAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board.