Coach Patrick and the Varsity Academic Challenge Team earned a perfect score on February 8th at regionals. Taking first place in the McHenry County Regional Competition, the team brushed off five of the seven subject areas. Overall, the varsity team scored in the highest division.

“The highest raw score for each subject is divided by 100 and each raw score is multiplied by the normally constant in each division. The team score is the sum of the normalized scores in chem, english, math, and the sum of the highest scores of two other subjects. Then it’s rounded,” senior Michelle Yang said.

Not only did the varsity team received first place at regionals, but their score resulted in an overall perfect score. Each of the team member’s individual scores added up to 500 points, the highest possible score at the competition.

“Many of the members on our team placed individually (either 1st, 2nd, or 3rd). Max Bowman and Steven Zhu placed first in all of their tests. Max competed for computer science and chemistry. Steven competed for physics and math. That’s really amazing and difficult to do! For the varsity team, all the points scored from everyone’s tests are added up together and we scored a total of 500 points as team,” junior Aarthi Koripelly said.

The team originates from a club at the high school, WYSE (Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Program). The Academic Challenge is a competitive series of tests created by a Test Production Team of academic experts.

“WYSE is individual study for we don’t prepare together as a team. We prepare using extra books, tests, and class notes. You either know the answer or you don’t. A lot of it has to come from understanding reading materials in and out of school and understanding concepts,” Koripelly said.

The Varsity Academic Challenge Team will now advance to the Sectional Competition on March 8th at Vernon Hills High School. Now, after experiencing the sensation of winning, the team has all the more motivation for an even stronger outcome at sectionals.

“There are many students who competed last year and had strong finishes in state, so I think they’re excited to get the opportunity to move on and  showcase their knowledge at the sectional competition. The ultimate goal is to make it down to state, but the students are focused on taking each competition one step at a time,” Coach Houk said.

More information on WYSE.