Individual honors help console team of Young scholars

The Whitney Young Magnet High School academic decathlon teamsuffered the agony of defeat in the national championship, but twomembers enjoyed the thrill of individual victory.

Despite their individual honors, juniors Shishir Sheth and YoungLee were "rather disappointed the team did not do as well as wethought we could," Lee said.

The nine-member Whitney Young team finished 20th among the 41contestants in recent competition in Los Angeles. A team fromRichardson, Texas, won for the third year in a row.

Whitney Young beat six other Illinois schools to reach thefinals.

Sheth was "flabbergasted" that he won top honors in the essaycompetition, while finishing "only third" in science and math. "Iusually thought of my strong points as being in math and science,"said Sheth, who wants to study medicine after graduation.

Lee savored her second-place finish in the math competition, butfelt she should have done better. "I was expecting first," said Lee,who has aspirations to be either a psychologist or a lawyer.

But both students said that even though they capturedindividual medals, a greater honor would have been to come back toChicago as national champions. Their trip was financed bycontributions from local corporations.

The daylong competition included tests in all major academicdisciplines, essay writing, speaking and a "super quiz," whichawarded 200 points for each correct answer.

Young's nine juniors and seniors fared poorest in the "superquiz" on immigration. "I guess we just did not have enough knowledgein that field and got caught on the really hard questions," Lee said.

"We'll have our chance again next year," Sheth said, when thesuper quiz will be on the U.S. Constitution.

"And that topic is something we all know a lot about," Shethsaid.