Walker School Academic Team Earns Top National Finish at Championship Tournament
7/8/2024
Walker School Academic Team Earns Top National Finish at Championship Tournament
The Walker School’s Upper School Academic Team recently earned an impressive 13th-place finish at the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT) High School National Championship Tournament, held in Atlanta over the weekend.
The event brought together 336 high school teams from across the country, each of which qualified by placing in the top 15 percent of a varsity-level tournament earlier in the year. Academic team tournaments are quiz bowl competitions where teams of four compete in fast-paced buzzer rounds to answer questions on a wide range of academic subjects.
The team, made up of juniors Nick Evangelista, Alec Harvey, Rohan Jain, Andy Rossitch and senior Karthik Jayaram, posted an 11-5 record across preliminary and playoff rounds. They won four consecutive playoff matches before narrowly losing in the Sweet Sixteen on the final question.
Jayaram, a senior leader on the team, was recognized as one of the tournament’s All-Stars, finishing as the 12th individual scorer out of nearly 1,700 individual competitors.
“Just qualifying is a big accomplishment, and reaching the playoff rounds puts us in the top tier of academic teams nationally,” said Michael Arjona, Assistant Head of School for Academic Affairs and the team’s coach. “We’re so proud of the students and how they represented Walker.”
Walker was the second-highest finisher among Georgia schools, with Northview High School placing second overall.
This strong national performance caps a successful 2024-2025 season for Walker’s Academic team as they won the GATA State Championship in the Small Private Schools Division in March and earned a 7th-place finish at the NAQT Small Schools National Championship Tournament in Chicago in April.
