From April 25 to April 28, Ann Arbor’s Academic Games team drove out to Washington, D.C. to compete in Nationals.
Academic Games is a competition of games that tests skills on a variety of subjects, like math, history, and English. Ann Arbor’s team has eight schools ranging from elementary school to high school.
“Nationals is always super stressful,” said Jessica Wu, Ann Arbor High School AG co-president. “We go as a team of all Ann Arbor schools, with fifth graders all the way up to seniors, and it’s just five days of straight competition.”
They competed every day from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., with seven games total and a four hour block for each game.
“The AG community is definitely super competitive but also super welcoming,” Wu said. “We’re a family, and we’re obviously competing against each other, but we also compete as a team. Yes, you obviously want yourself to do well, but you also want your team and your friends to do well.”
A lot of the high school team has been on the same team since the end of elementary school.
“You really build that community from what’s essentially forced proximity,” Wu said. “And you just start to love each other.”
The high schoolers also help coach the elementary school teams. Wu coaches A2 Steam, co-president Jayeun Lee coaches King and co-president Jennifer Tang coaches Thurston and Logan.
“Nationals was really special this year because I got to go with the King Elementary team that I coached this year,” Lee said. “It was really exciting to see our team progressing along with their team.”
Ann Arbor AG won around 25 awards total at nationals, including two team national champions and three individual national champions. Senior Andy Xu was one of three in the country to be awarded the Outstanding Senior Scholarship.
“I was just super overwhelmed because it was a super big nomination for me,” Xu said. “I was super thankful for my coaches honoring me like that and maybe felt slightly undeserving.”
Wu says that the best part of AG is the equal commitment from everyone.
“In AG, we’ve all been doing this for so long that it’s our life,” she said. “This is our thing. We all want it so bad; we fight for it.
