Academic Decathlon at one of their competitions. Photo courtesy of Fiona Tsang (’17).by Sandra On, Staff Writer/Photographer
Academic Decathlon is an annual high school academic competition organized by a non-profit organization called the United States Academic Decathlon Association.
Fountain Valley High School’s Academic Decathlon Coach is Pre-Calculus and Algebra Preparatory teacher, Leslie Murray who has been coaching Academic Decathlon for six years. On board is president Leandra Doan (‘16), vice president Daniel Ahn (‘16), treasurer Ryan Tran (‘16), Secretary Fiona Tsang (‘17) and Historian Ritesh Bhatt (‘16).
Each year, Academic Decathlon is tested on a certain theme. Their theme for this year is India, and from this theme they will be tested on seven different topics ranging from science, literature, music, art, social science, economics and math. However, they will be not be tested on math with this theme.
Academic Decathlon will also participate in five different events, tests of knowledge, speech, essay, interview and the super quiz.
There is one main team consisting of nine students with three students in each grade point average (GPA) category. There are three different unweighted GPA categories, Honors (3.750-4.00 GPA), Scholastic (3.00-3.749 GPA) and Varsity (0.00-2.999 GPA).
“We have no problem finding students in the super high GPA category…We have a hard time finding kids in the lower GPA category… it’s really hard to get those kids in the team because you have to study extra and they don’t want to study anyway,” Murray said.
There are three divisions that each school is placed in based from their scores. Division one being the highest, division two being the average and division three being the lowest. Fountain Valley is placed in division two because of their previous scores.
“We’re glad we’re in division two because we usually clean up in division two,” Murray said.
On Nov. 21, Academic Decathlon competed in a preseason competition. Fountain Valley competed against all three divisions during the scrimmage and placed fifth overall, managing to beat one of the toughest schools, Westminster High School.
Each school is able to move up to the next level if they are qualified based on their scores and performance. Competitions start off with county, from there they move over to state and then nation. Over 500 schools and approximately 13,000 high school students participate in California’s Academic Decathlon competitions. Competition season has yet to start for the students.
“There are two days of competitions. The first day [of competitions] is speech, interview and essay and that’s when everyone has to dress up in their formal business attire. The second day of competition is the seven other subjects,” Doan (‘16) said.
FV Academic Decathlon started practicing since the beginning of the summer. They also meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 3-5pm to practice and get ready for their upcoming season.
“We have medaled for the last six years that I know of, so we always place somewhere,” Murray said.
