3MT Competition FAQ

Try to keep your audition video as close to three minutes as you can. If you are invited to participate in the competition as a finalist, the video you submit must be as close to three minutes as possible without going over the time limit. If you go over the time limit, you will be disqualified. If you are significantly under the time limit, you may be downgraded by the judges.

A finalist must submit the final version of their recorded presentation by March 10, 2021. All finalists will be invited to participate in the online awards ceremony, which will be held via Zoom on March 31, 2021. At that time, the winners for the First Place, Runner Up, and People's Choice awards will be announced.

The online application and audition video can be submitted separately, but be aware that all application materials, including the audition video, must be submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research by February 24, 2021. To submit your audition video outside of the application form cgsr@radford.edu. Please do not email video as attachments; these messages and their attached files will be deleted, and your application will be considered incomplete.

Begin by uploading your audition video file to your university-sponsored OneDrive account. (OneDrive can be accessed from the main menu of MyRU.) Once the file is uploaded to OneDrive, you can generate a "sharable link" to the file by doing the following:

1. Select your video file.
2. Click "Share" in the menu bar at the top of the screen.
3. Click "People you specify can view," and then select "People in Radford University with the link" as the sharing setting.  (This setting will allow the 3MT organizers to watch your video; the video will not be made available to the wider university community.)
4. Click "Apply" (blue button), and then select "Copy link" (link icon).

You now will be able to copy the link to your video file.

Audition videos will be used to select the finalists who will compete for the First Place, Runner Up, and People's Choice Awards. Award winners will be announced during an online ceremony on March 31, 2021. In addition, audition videos will be used to provide feedback and coaching to the selected finalists to assist them in preparing the final, polished version of the pre-recorded video they will submit for judging consideration.

You have many options for recording your presentation. You can use a cell phone, tablet, or other video-capable device to create a video,  or you can use a web cam associated with your computer or laptop.  (If you don't have access to one of these devices or prefer not to use your own, you can borrow audiovisual video equipment free of charge from the McConnell Library.)

You also might choose to use Zoom or another video conferencing platform to record your presentation. 

Depending on how you plan to integrate the required slide into your presentation, some recording options may be better than others. 

You will be notified on or around March 3, 2021 if you are invited to participate in the competition as a finalist. 

Your audition video should be an approximation of the three-minute presentation that you would give if selected to participate as a finalist in the competition. You can get a good sense of what 3MT Competitions are like by viewing videos of winning presentations from The University of Queensland, which started the 3MT Competition in 2008.

No, your final recorded presentation that the judges will evaluate does not have to be the same as the audition video you submitted. In fact, we hope it is not! The audition video is a way for you to demonstrate your readiness for the final competition. You are free to change your final recorded presentation as long as it keeps with the competition guidelines for time and format. 

No. Your audition video does need to be highly produced or “super polished,” but you may want to practice your presentation a few times before making your video.