Competing at the national level in high school takes serious planning and teamwork, and the Garnet Valley High School Science Olympiad team showed exactly that at both the Princeton Invitational and the University of Pennsylvania's SOUP competition. SOUP is the third hardest invitational in the country, and schools travel from across the US just to be there. Despite this, Garnet Valley came away with medals in six events. That kind of success doesn't come without the familiar pre-academic grind that students at GV have become accustomed to. Students often study into the night, and the last-minute scramble to print reference materials before a competition has become a tradition that all GVHS students can relate to.
At the Princeton Invitational, the frigid weather proved to be difficult as the team had to deal with long, cold, windy days. The team, however, persevered and placed 10th out of 59 teams. Each time a medal was announced at the award ceremony, the entire team cheered, showcasing the comradery they have built together through years of dedication.
The specific medalists at the Princeton Invitational included:
- 3rd Place, Hovercraft: Rohit Rajagopalan & Ved Maru
- 4th Place, Disease Detectives: Jerry Huang & Nick Burkat
- 5th Place, Science Quiz Bowl: Rohit Rajagopalan, Aditya Parab & Saiteja Pobbala
- 6th Place, Chemistry Lab: Aditya Parab & Jerry Huang
- 6th Place, Designer Genes: Saiteja Pobbala & Anisha Gowtham Srinivas
More goes into the competition than just trophies and testing scores. Keeping the team’s morale up between each competition is often just as important. These logistical parts of the event, while not normally publicly recognized, are just as critical as winning the competition. One of the things that became a routine for the team was to eat together at Wawa after finishing their events for the weekend.
Nick Burkat, was not about to let freezing temperatures get in the way of a slushie.
Winning at this level takes real academic dedication, but the moments that stick long after graduation are usually the ones that happen in between the actual events. On the bus ride home from the Princeton Invitational, the team sung karaoke together.
A strong academic team is built just as much in those in-between moments as it is in the competition itself. The photos below, courtesy of competitor Jerry Huang, capture exactly that.
