Participating in Academic Decathlon is not about demonstrating how good a student you already are. It’s about daring to push your limits, to master college-level material and to practice skills, like public speaking, that might be wholly new to you. It’s about the people you’ll meet along the way, the coaches who will mentor you, the competitors who will challenge you, and the teammates who will become your lifelong friends.

You’ll learn an exciting new theme each year, themes like Russia, World War I, and New Alternatives in Energy: Ingenuity and Innovation. You’ll explore seven subjects connected to that theme, from art and science to math and economics. You’ll learn to move an audience not just with facts and rhetoric, but with confidence. And you’ll never do any of this alone. You’ll be working with a team, a team composed of students with a wide range of grades but a single shared goal.

I invite you to become part of a program that you may think is over your head, until you realize you can reach higher as a team. I invite you to struggle, to learn, to understand; not just to win, but to lead.