Congratulations to Choate's Fed Challenge team which won the national Fed Challenge competition on May 19 in Washington, D.C.

The team had advanced through the regionals at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank last month. It faced teams from Montclair High School in Montclair, New Jersey; the Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia; and the Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Fed Challenge is sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board. The competition promotes economic literacy by asking high school students to analyze economic conditions and recommend an appropriate course for monetary policy in a presentation before a panel of judges.

The competition requires a team to give a 15-minute presentation with the team’s analysis of current economic conditions and the team’s recommendation for monetary policy. As you can imagine, in the current economic environment, figuring out what is happening in the economy and the financial markets and what the Fed should do next with all of its new policy tools has been a complicated task.

Following the presentation, the team must answer questions from the panel of judges for 15 minutes. The judges may respond to the team’s presentation or ask about current events, economic theory or the Fed. The judges this year were a former Federal Reserve Governor and the top economists for the New York and Richmond Federal Reserve Banks.

Choate’s Fed Challenge Team, coached by economics teacher Ted Hartsoe, has competed in the Fed Challenge for 12 years, and 10 previous times won the regional competition through the Boston Federal Reserve Bank and competed at the national level, but had never won.

Congratulations to 2009 Fed Challenge team members:

Stephanie Choi ’09, of Iowa City, Iowa
Alexandra Cooper-Ponte ’09, of Wilmington, Delaware
Daniel Hartsoe ’09, of Wallingford, Connecticut
Suril Kantaria ’09, of Glastonbury, Connecticut
Nikhith Naidu ’09, of Durham, Connecticut
Aditya Rajagopalan ’09, of Glastonbury, Connecticut

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