On April 2, both teams of U-High’s newly formed Finance Team competed in their first competition at the NIU valuation challenge, where one team earned a first place finish. 

Juniors Ameya Deo, Donovan Miller, Kriti Sarav and Ethan Swinger participated on the Da Team and finished in first place. The club’s other team, the A-Team, which consisted of ninth graders Ayush Mishra and Raza Ali Zaidi and sophomores Brandon Chang, Carter Chang and David Ren placed in the top eight in the final round. 

“While I was disappointed that we were not in the top two,” Raza said, “I was happy we reached the final round. I am looking forward to competing in more contests, and maybe winning.”

The end challenge of the competition was to propose a merger between two companies, and students practiced skills of how to effectively analyze companies, Raza said. 

“The biggest thing I took away from this conference was experience,” Donovan wrote in an email. “Prior to participating, I had never done or heard about anything like this so I believe that it was good exposure.”