PROFICIENCY AWARDS

The National FFA Agricultural Proficiency Awards honor FFA members who, through their supervised agricultural experiences (SAEs), have developed specialized skills that they can apply toward their future careers.

Overview

Students can compete for awards in almost 50 areas covering everything from agricultural communications to wildlife management. There are four types of proficiency awards:

Placement proficiency awards are given to those whose SAEs are related to employment, apprenticeships, or internships at an agribusiness or agriculture-related organization.

Entrepreneurship proficiency awards are given to those whose SAEs are related to ownership of an agribusiness or agriculture-related enterprise.

Combined - Some proficiency award areas are not split into entrepreneurship and placement, applicants can combine both placement and entrepreneurship records if both are included in the SAE.

Agriscience Research proficiency awards involve planning and conducting an agriculturally based scientific experiment based on hypothesis and the use of the scientific methods of investigation on the hypothesis.

Proficiency awards are recognized at the local, state and national levels. Local chapter winners compete to win their state. The state winner from each state competes nationally.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I complete my roster now?

Rosters are still completed on ffa.org. If you have specific questions, please contact Dr. Rada.

I don’t use AET. How do my students access their proficiency/state degree application?

The full picture directions can be found in the SAE Handbook found in documents.

State Degree: pages 7-20

How to find student information for students make an account: 26-28

How students make the account: pages 28-30

My student can’t log into AET but is set up with ffa.org:

The username and password for ffa.org won’t work on the AET website. The default username and password for AET is the first letter of their first name capitalized and their full last name starting with a capital up to 11 total characters.

Still not working? Log into your teacher account on AET, click ‘Accounts,’ click ‘Manage all Accounts,’ and it will show your students accounts and usernames. The default is the username matches the password. If a student changed the password, you can also change it here by clicking their name and putting in a new password.

My student forgot their password for AET:

Log into your teacher account on AET, click ‘Accounts,’ click ‘Manage all Accounts,’ and it will show your students accounts and usernames. The default is the username matches the password. If a student changed the password, you can also change it here by clicking their name and putting in a new password.

Why aren’t all the pages showing up in the application?

The application will only add the pages relevant to the SAE category. Once the ‘cover’ and ‘basic setup’ tabs are complete, the rest of the pages should show up.

Not all of the records are in AET but the application is locked.

On the instruction page go to #12. This application is locked to your AET records. Editing of financial records is through AET. Click Here to unlock this application.” NOTE: Once you unlock the application, you cannot re-lock it. Any changes made it the record keeping system will not be transferred to the application.

Not sure where numbers are transferring from or getting errors?

Try to click these icons (green question mark) because contain additional help and tips.

Learning Outcomes and Efficiency Factors are now required for Placement applications. What goes there?

For entrepreneurship SAEs, focus on efficiency factors that improves your projects.
For placement SAEs, focus on your learning outcomes and how your skill attainment or learning has improved.

There are examples under the green question marks to help.

Placement apps should ONLY use outcomes and forget efficiency factors (which is what they always had to use before). I will have some examples of what works for a placement outcome when I do my sample applications. Here’s one example of what I would list:

Learning Outcome: Identify and have working knowledge of all feeds sold in the feed store.

Impact: By learning all the options for feeds that are for sale in the store, I have been able to help customers correctly purchase the right feed for their animals. This has allowed me to be more productive on the floor and I don’t have to go ask my supervisor for help anymore. Customers are also happier.

Basically, the outcomes could be the goals a student sets for themselves at the beginning of an SAE, and then describe how that has impacted their success on the job.

Where do the performance indicators come from for the Skills page?

They are from the Performance Indicators on the National AFNR standards found here (light blue boxes): https://www.ffa.org/sitecollectiondocuments/council_afnr_career_cluster_content_standards.pdf

Where do the personal expenses go (ex: vehicle)?

All assets are classified in the same way. There is no personal and productively invested in the new application. The truck value is listed as an asset in the non current assets.