Hershey’s Academic Decathlon team competed in the Eastern Pennsylvania Academic Decathlon Regional Competition at Methacton High School on February 3, 2024. Led by HHS English teacher Derek Dietz the Decathalon team placed third out of five teams and qualified for the state competition.

Combined, all the students won 29 medals across the ten academic decathlon categories. With seven subject tests, an essay, an interview, and impromptu speech, these students had to learn a wide range of skills and subjects. 

There were even a few students that scored the highest in the entire competition for a certain category: Thy Pham for the science category, Sara Joo for her essay, and Julia Woronko for the impromptu speech. 

Pham scored the highest overall score with 7,127 out of 10,000 possible points. The overall score is calculated by adding up the scores an individual earns at every event, where 1,000 points can be earned. Pham’s high score qualified her for the honors all-star team which takes the top three overall scores from each respective GPA tier. 

Julia Woronko and Katie Whipple placed 4th and 5th overall. 

“The fact that we were able to,” said Dietz, “in our first year, come in and be one of the top teams in our region at the state level is just incredible.”

However, despite their success, their participation in the state competition is unclear. A number of members will be in Chicago with the music department, which overlaps with the Academic Decthalon state competition. 

“We need to sort all that out before we can continue to prepare,” said Dietz. 

Regardless, the team is still searching for more members, especially those with a GPA below 2.9 for the Varsity category. Given that the categories and book of study for the 2024-2025 season are announced near the end of the year, Dietz said that the team will begin preparation in April.