The Fed Challenge Team kept up Choate’s legacy with their recent win in Boston. PHOTO/Mr. Hartsoe

The Fed Challenge team—Steven Chen ’08, Ashwini Kadaba ’08, Taylor McDonald ’08, Ethan McDonnell ’09, and Irene Zhang ’08—performed outstandingly in the Boston district finals last Thursday. The team, coached by Economics teacher Ted Hartsoe, earned yet another trip to the national competition, which takes place from May 17 to May 19, at the Federal Reserve Bank in the Board of Governors’ offices in Washington, D.C.

The Fed Challenge competition hosts teams of five students from each participating school. During the competition, each team gives a fifteen-minute presentation on the current conditions of and important issues in the U.S. national economy, along with the team’s recommendation for the current monetary policy. After each presentation, the teams participate in a question-and-answer session with the judges, who are top macroeconomists employed by the Federal Banks.

Of the eleven years that the team has competed in the Fed Challenge, this year marks the tenth time that they have won in the Boston district finals and advanced to Washington, D.C. Choate has made the finals at the national level five times.

A prerequisite for the team is the monetary theory class taught by Mr. Hartsoe. In the winter term, he chooses students who “do well in the class, and can work well with others” for the final group. According to Coach Hartsoe, this team is “like a varsity sport” in terms of time commitment. The Fed Challenge team meets almost every day for F block class and has extra practices before the competition.

“I think more time to polish the presentation would have made our presentation a bit better,” said Mr. Hartsoe of the Boston competition. Irene Zhang ’08 thought that the Q&A session with the judges could be improved: “Usually, the judges ask general questions about the current situation in the U.S., so we were taken aback when the judges asked very specific questions about monetary policy and the new tools that the Feds are using.” Mr. Hartsoe notes that the team did a very good job tackling the “in-depth” strategy questions that the judges posted. “The team did a very nice job; it was a good accomplishment.”

“The economic situation that this team has to talk about is more complicated and more challenging to understand than that which other teams have faced in other years,” says Mr. Hartsoe. “I’m looking forward to Washington, where I hope we will be able to win.” The team members share Mr. Hartsoe’s enthusiasm. “I was very happy when we won the district finals, because it was the team’s first time winning the district since everyone’s new,” said Steven Chen ’08. “Hopefully, we will continue on to win the finals.” At the national competition, our team will have to overpower the other four district final teams from Richmond, Chicago, New York, and St. Louis. “It would be really fun to win the first national for the school, so we’ll do our best and see what happens!” says Zhang.

Currently, the team is trying to find more practice time to polish the presentation. “We practiced in the infirmary when Irene had a broken pelvis, dining hall, Humanities building, on buses… but we have not been practicing so much lately [because of the] APs,” says Chen.

Mr. Hartsoe said, “This is a good team to go to Washington, but we never know if we might win—because the questions judges ask might be hard, and the teams that are competing with us are usually very good, so it will be a very close competition.”