About ten years ago I served on the exhibition committee of a large arts organization in the San Francisco Bay area. Based on that experience, I know how arbitrary both the selection of jurors, and the choices of jurors on what to include in the shows, are in juried competitions. I have many stories, some heartbreaking, some hilarious, from that period. I eventually quit because the influence of identity politics in selecting jurors became so outrageous that the shows ceased to be about art anymore.
Be that as it may, these events are one of the few available venues for starting artists, who are without connections or credentials, to exhibit their work. I learned to view entering these competitions as a total crap shoot. You never know what's going to happen. They rarely result in sales for the participants, and the only money to be made is the honorarium paid to the juror(s). So you should look on them as resume builders. I'm excluding the professional society competitions, of which I have no experience.
But, as I said, you never know what's going to happen. Back in the mid 90's I did the one and only entry of a painting of mine into one of these competitions. The show was called Regional Canvas, and was strictly for painting. My entry was a strange little painting, "It's My Cherry", in a "realist" style. As it happens, it's still on the internet at:
http://www.proartsgallery.org/ebos1996/artists/093.html
The show drew over 1000 entries, and was juried by two artists whom I had no reason to think would be sympathetic to my style. Only 50 entries were selected and mine was among them. The only other painting in a "realist" style was an elegant little nude about the same size as my painting.
Both my painting and the little nude won jurors' commendations, of which there were about half-a-dozen. The best of show went to a large abstract painting, to the best I can recall. So go figure!