On Saturday morning, Solon High School’s top-rated Academic Challenge Team will be on TV, displaying their talents during the Academic Challenge television show, on WEWS TV5.
The three seniors who compose the team are veteran National Academic Quiz Tournament competitors and will be displaying their academic knowledge during the 30-minute show.
All three seniors, Ethan Feldman, Prahalad Rao and Rohan Dushyanth Navaneetha Raj who appear on Saturday’s broadcast, have asked community members to tune in to the show, which features Solon competing against Uniontown Lake High School and Wooster High School. But the Solon students won’t share how they did in the competition, even though the show was taped earlier this fall. Tune in at 11:30 a.m. to see the outcome which will be divulged as the show is aired.
According to Solon’s Academic Challenge team coach Peter Bergman, a social studies teacher at Solon High, this year’s team includes three-fourths of the state championship winning team from last year.
In other words, these are some smart kids.
The students have been participating in academic quiz bowl tournaments since middle school, with Ethan starting in seventh grade and Prahalad and Rohan starting in eighth grade. The team is known as the Academic Challenge team at school, but the tournaments they participate in are organized through the National Academic Quiz Tournaments, (NAQT) LLC, which organizes the premier middle school, high school, community college, and college national quiz bowl championships in North America.
NAQT provides questions to invitational tournaments and league championships throughout the year as well as for television shows, like WEWS’s Academic Challenge, and for other online games and tournaments. The competition questions range across all academic subjects, but also include things like music, pop culture and sports, according to Mr. Bergman.
He said that some people think Academic Challenge is only a once-a-year competition that takes place on television, but the team from Solon actually is made up of between 12 and 20 players, and includes students in grades nine through 12 who compete throughout the school year. The most experienced students compete on the school’s A team, which is the team that traveled to the Cleveland television station to participate on the show. Three juniors served as alternates, Varun Sathyajeeth, Sarah Dong, and Prajval Santosh Reddy Kesireddy, who also attended the show’s taping to support the competitors.
“The most surprising thing about the show was how bright the lights were,” laughed Ethan Feldman. “But once the show started it didn’t feel that different from the other competitions we take part in.”
The three competitors said they all are involved in advanced level courses, but Prahalad Rao said it is his studying of different subject matter and college level materials that really helps prepare him for the competitions.
Rohan Navaneetha Raj said he thought the television competition felt like it went by quickly, and that “most of the questions we answered were not unfamiliar.”
He added that what he likes most about competing on the Academic Challenge team is the friendships he has forged, and “the opportunity for skilled people to all come together.”
Like many high school students, participating on the Academic Challenge team is not the only extracurricular activity in which these high achieving students take part, but they say being part of the team has helped them in other aspects of their lives, and helped prepare them for future academic pursuits.
“I would say I have gained experience in studying and preparation for college-level courses,” said Ethan, who admitted he has searched many college level online textbooks and study guides while studying for the team. Ethan plans to major in financial engineering when he goes to college next fall.
“There is even an opportunity to compete on a college level team, said Prahalad. “But I am not sure If that is my plan. Believe it or not, Academic Challenge is a relaxing activity for me.” He added that his college plans include majoring in political science, and possibly going into law.
“I would say it helps me with studying and prioritization of information,” added Rohan, who said his plan is to major in applied math and computer science and go into quantitative analysis after high school.
But for now, the students are enjoying their senior year and have been extremely successful in the other NAQT tournaments thus far.
“Well, they won all four of the tournaments we have had this year,” said Mr. Bergman when asked how he thinks this team has shaped up. Mr Bergman has coached the Solon Academic Challenge teams since 2014, and is one of the most experienced coaches in the area.
“Mr. Bergman is really a great coach, I think he is honestly one of the top coaches in the state,” said Rohan matter-of-factly.
The goal of this team, however, is not only to win state competitions, but to get to Atlanta, where over Memorial Day weekend they will have the chance to compete in the national tournament for NAQT.
Their ultimate goal is to become national champions.
Saturday at 11:30 a.m. is a chance to see this talented group of Solon High School seniors on one part of their journey to that goal.
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