When most students retire their notebooks for the summer, junior Anushka Vijay, opens hers up. As Academic Decathlon’s captain, her preparation for the next school year starts immediately as she perfects her study methods, using note cards, Quizlets, Blookets and more.

United States Academic Decathlon is an academic competition comprised of 10 different content areas ranging from math to music. There are three brackets of competition — honors, scholastic and varsity — where  students’ GPA determines their bracket. Three individuals from each bracket come together to make a competitive team for state, with  each category worth  1,000 points, leaving a total perfect score of 10,000 points.

This past year, Vijay was in the top 0.01% of students and received the opportunity to compete at the national level. She scored 9,007 points at state — averaging a 900 in all ten events —  resulting in her to be one  of the top four highest scorers in Texas.

Vijay is the first student from the school to advance to the national level for Academic Decathlon. “Her biggest strength is she is a stone-cold, ruthless competitor,” AcDec teacher Brent Beeson said. “I coached athletics for a long time. I can arguably say that even though it’s not on the athletic side, she is definitely one of the most competitive students I have ever met in my entire life.”

But the accomplishment did not come overnight. 

“Preparation begins immediately, the second the school year ends,” Beeson said. “[Anishka] has been studying and preparing for state since the beginning of June, arguably the end of May.”  

For Vijay, consistency and organization became the key to balancing AcDec with AP classes, SAT practice  and extracurricular activities.

“I always set aside one or two hours a day to [study for AcDec],” Vijay said. “I really like using flashcards because they’re convenient and easy to use. . I make sure to just have everything I need to do on a list, and  prioritize my school work first, and whatever time I have leftover, I devote to my other activities.”

Although Academic Decathlon centers around individual testing, students depend heavily on one another to succeed.

“One kid might be stronger in economics [so they] take the lead,” Black said. “Everyone has strengths in different areas, and so they help the teammates who struggle in those areas.”

The team atmosphere is one of the things that drew Vijay to the program as a freshman, and that sense of community has remained her favorite part of the program.

“I remember when I was a rising freshman, I went to see the AcDec booth at the rising freshman night,” Vijay said. “It was really kind and welcoming, and it made me realize I could find my place here. My favorite part is just getting to hang out with the team and the community. Sometimes it can be hard studying a lot for something, but if you’re doing it with your teammates, it becomes easier.”

Much of Vijay’s success comes from the work she puts in when no one is looking.

“The practice is something people don’t see,” Beeson said. “When everyone else is on social media, or playing games on their computer, or streaming, Anushka is someone who is grinding. She is striving to be the best.”

Anushka was not expecting to advance to the national level.

“I was really shocked because I didn’t think I did good enough to qualify,” Vijay said. “It was a happy surprise to be able to go to nationals. I’m just really happy that I get to compete at nationals and my journey doesn’t have to end at state.”

Nationals took place in Anaheim, California, where Vijay placed with gold medals in art and music and silver medals in literature and social science.

“Nationals was a great experience for me,” Vijay said. “ I enjoyed getting to meet people from all over the nation who were just as passionate about AcDec as I am. It felt like I was part of a community that was larger than life.”