Science Olympiad: a demanding, prestigious, and rewarding STEM-based experience for thousands of students across the United States. The road that the program has taken to get where it is today was far from smooth. But this year, the success of the Science Olympiad program is well-known. Not only has the high school team placed first at Regionals – a competition for the entire Capital Region – but they’ve also scored the highest they have in their Statewide competition. How did they manage to get to where they are today? This article answers that with an interview, listed below, of the current president of Shaker High School’s Science Olympiad team, Rui Zheng:

How long have you worked with/been part of Science Olympiad? What was the state of the Science Olympiad team when you first joined?

[I was] a sub in freshman year and then a main team member in sophomore year. In junior year, I became Secretary and President the year after. The state of Science Olympiad for Shaker has never been the strongest. If you look at the history of our club, we’ve only really been to 2 state tournaments before this year, with the last one being all the way back in 2011… While other schools get funding and multiple academic coaches, the team at Shaker remains student-driven. For most years, including the first couple of years I was on the team, no one actually believed we would make it past Regionals… I think the first year we actually realized we had a fighting chance was in the 2024-2025 season, in my junior year. That year, we got 6th, which was the highest we’ve performed at a Regionals performance in a long long time… I think enough people realized that if they studied hard enough and put enough time into the team, we could do something great next year.

You have achieved much success this year through invitationals and Regionals alike. What do you believe the officers and team changed to obtain this success? Do you believe much of this change happened this year, or was it a gradual improvement?

The months after Regionals of 2025, I had started to think a lot more about Science Olympiad and its future, especially since I would be leading it as President Sakthi was graduating that year. At first, it was really just “how can I make sure people will actually take us seriously?” At the competitions we went to, we were never the frontrunners and no one really knew who we were as a team.

I’d say the first thing we did to lead up to that goal was choosing officers. Our officers for this current season were chosen early on in April of 2025, way earlier than the officers had typically been chosen. We wanted to accelerate this process so we would have more time in late Spring and over the summer to get people studying and putting the club as a priority. I think the officers were one of the biggest reasons we were able to have so much success this season. One name I’ll point out is Everitt, who is genuinely one of the most hard-working people I know… People like him who truly cared about this club and the future it holds kept us accountable and made sure we didn’t lose our goal halfway into the season. 

The other thing we started doing was changing our entire club structure… We implemented mock exams which really weeded out a lot of people who otherwise would’ve been in the club solely for college apps or reasons that didn’t deal with actual interest in the club. We wanted to find people who were competent and would actually study for their events if given them… Although [the exams] weren’t perfect by any means since it was the first year we’ve had them, we really thought it made a difference. Choosing teams is definitely one of, if not the most important part of team success, as you need dedicated people who would actually put in the time to do their best at every competition, and you need to put them all in events they’d be good at and enjoy… Starting last year and continuing this year, we [also] started going to more and more satellite competitions early into the season, which helped people study for in-person competitions… Allowing the team to compete every few weeks [built] community and dedication towards the club.

Lastly, we tried to build a stronger club community this year, often through very untraditional ways… for the most part I think most people were able to talk to their partners and interact with the club as a whole.

[Interviewer’s Note: Pictures of the club’s teammates together are attached at the end of the article to give a bit of insight into the strength of the club’s culture.]

Did you expect to get first this year? How did you feel about it?

At first, my hope was pretty low. But then as we got to more competitions, we just started doing better and better… We went from 12th in Highlands to 4th in Fayetteville to 3rd in Columbia and eventually 1st at Regionals: a pretty good trend if you ask me. Team morale definitely improved as the year went on… I think everything worked out in our favor, and our goalposts just kept shifting higher and higher. I can remember being at Regionals, [the hosts] slowly counting off the top teams, and Shaker never being called until the very end. It was an unprecedented feeling, something that I don’t think I’ll feel for a very long time. Science Olympiad is probably the one thing I’ve poured the most of my energy on for the past couple years, and I was overjoyed that it hadn’t been for nothing… I’m sure everyone in that gym [was] able to properly hear our Bison Pride through our screams.

What are your future goals?

I think the priority right now is making sure the progress we’ve made this year can continue for years after. Picking new officers is certainly one thing we have to think about, and it has to be done very strategically so we choose people who are genuinely going to improve our club and make sure it remains a Capital Region stronghold for years to come… As 3 of the 6 current officers graduate this year, we need to make sure that we’re able to support the team for as much time as we still can, so we’ll definitely still be active for the months after States, too. We hope that during this time, we get stuff figured out, make the changes to the club we still have to make [and] make sure this club can continue to see the success that it did this season for a long long time.

Anything else you’d like to mention/say for the article?

I’d like to just say thank you to Mr. Ziebel and Ms. Rodriguez for being amazing advisors and never being too serious. They were a crucial component of our club’s culture and we would not be the team we are without their support!!!

——————————————————————————————————————————-

I thank Rui Zheng for providing insight into the Shaker High School Science Olympiad team’s success, and congratulations to the entire team’s achievements! The story of the Science Olympiad team clearly demonstrates the rewards to determination and endurance. If you’d like to be part of a club with dedicated, lively club culture, are interested in anything science related, and above all else are very motivated, consider joining the team’s rising success for next season!