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By Robert Rosen
Hometown Weekly Staff
On Saturday, March 12, the Wellesley High Academic Decathlon team traveled to MIT to compete in the State Championship Meet against teams from around the state.
After 12 hours of intense competition, Wellesley was crowned the 2016 Massachusetts Large School State Champions with a score of 37,829.6 while finishing second overall in the state to Acton-Boxborough.
“The State Championship Meet was absolutely surreal,” said Tony Shu, one of the team’s co-captains. “We have been studying since the summer. We also had daily study sessions in the school library right after school. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of information, so it is definitely a huge but incredibly rewarding commitment.”
Shu said that the team started with between 20-30 kids this year, but only nine get to compete on the team, with three students competing in each of the three GPA divisions. Allison Kumarasena and Rachel Landau serve as the other co-captains of the team, while teachers Lauren Colella and Stephanie Welch coach the team.
All three captains received individual awards at the State Championship Meet. Kumarasena (Scholastic) received a Bronze in the Essay and a Silver in the Interview; Landau (Honors) received a Bronze in the Essay and was Massachusetts State Champion (Gold) in the Speech).
Shu (Honors) was Massachusetts State Champion (Gold) in Economics, Science, Essay, Subjective Event, Overall (combined Essay, Speech and Interview), and in Speech (tied with Landau). He also received a Silver in Music and a Bronze in Art, Social Science and Interview.
“The best part about this year was truly creating a team/family atmosphere,” Shu said. “We didn’t want to be a group of people who only came together a few times a year to compete; rather, we hosted picnics, ate at buffets and attended museums together as a team all in addition to studying everyday after school. We wanted to foster friendship in addition to intellectual curiosity.”
Academic Decathlon is a national and international competition that features seven objective tests (math, science, economics, literature, art, music and social science) that are based on an academically rigorous college-level curriculum linked by a common theme. This year’s theme was India, meaning approximately two-thirds of the material was related to India, according to Shu.
There are also three subjective events (essay, speech and interview) that challenge the competitors to develop, connect and communicate ideas and personal experiences under pressure. In addition, there is one high-pressure, high-stakes Super Quiz relay open to the public.
“What makes Academic Decathlon unique is that everyone must compete in all 10 events,” said Shu. “Although we all have our favorite subjects, to do well we must learn and prepare for all subjects. Because of this people are able to discover subjects and topics that they fall in love with.”
Wellesley has been offered a spot to compete at the Academic Decathlon e-Nationals competition in April.
The Academic Decathlon team is also beginning to fundraise for next year. They need to raise $2,000 to compete and purchase all of the relevant study materials and Academic Decathlon packets and are looking for businesses or family sponsors who are willing to donate any amount they can.
They are also hoping to save up money to subsidize the cost of attending Nationals if they make it that far in future years as they have had to turn down the opportunity in the past. If you’d like to help sponsor the Wellesley Academic Decathlon team, contact coach Lauren Colella at [email protected].
Robert Rosen is an Editor at Hometown Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @roberterosen.
