A dozen schools sent students to Harker in mid-March for the California Regional Certamen, the qualifying certamen (quiz bowl) event for the California Junior Classical League (CJCL) State Convention.

The event, held in Dobbins, the gym and Main hall, went well and five Harker teams, three middle school and two upper school, teams competed. All three middle school teams (MS1, MS2, MS3) amassed the most points in their divisions and thus each seeded first for the semifinal rounds to be held in April at the state convention. MS1 comprised Sean Costello, Aditya Dhar, Alexander Lam, Venkat Sankar, Arjun Subramaniam, Austin Tuan, all grade 6; MS2 was Rishabh Chandra, Kaushik Sankar, Elisabeth Siegel, Allison Wang, all grade 7; MS3 was Zabin Bashar, Aadyot Bhatnagar, Maya Nandakumar, Rasika Raghavan, all grade 8.

In upper school results, Harker’s HSAdv (advanced) team finished first in its level and our HS3 team finished third in its level, both qualifying for the state level with high seeds. HSAdv comprised Jessica Lin, Alex Hsu, both grade 11; Richard Fan, Nik Datuashvili and Pranav Sharma, all grade 10. HS3 was sophomore Ram Menon and freshmen Kevin Duraiswamy and Nikhil Dilip. The top nine students in each level will compete in a semifinal round at the CJCL Convention April 8-9 at Miramonte High School in Orinda. The final round will consist of the top three remaining of those nine.