American High School Theatre Festival festival runs in conjunction with the world renown Edinburgh Fringe Festival - the world's largest performing arts festival, which takes place each August in Edinburgh, Scotland. To select the schools who will participate, AHSTF relies on state, regional, and national theatre organizations and university theatre professors to nominate the nation's top high school theatre programs. Each nominated school receives an application, and all completed applications are reviewed by the AHSTF Board of Advisors. The panel of college theatre professionals comes from all corners of the country. Top high school programs are identified based on their most recent bodies of work, awards, community involvement, philosophies, and recommendations. To promote diverse participation, AHSTF does not allow schools to participate in back to back years. The selected schools are notified in the spring of each year, allowing them more than a full year to plan their once-in-a-lifetime performance on AHSTF's world stage.