The rapidly-growing Academic Pentathlon program allows middle school students a chance to start experiencing the benefits of Academic Decathlon® before entering high school.
Each student experiences the decathlon challenges of rigorous team and individual competition in five events: literature, mathematics, fine arts, science and social science. The program strives to foster a greater respect for knowledge, promote wholesome inter-school academic competition, and further develop student communication skills.
Pentathlon teams should consist of a maximum of nine team members and a minimum of six team members in grades 6–8. Each team must consist of at least two students from each GPA category: honor (3.8-4.00), scholastic (3.20-3.799) and varsity (0.0-3.199).
Teams advance through local, regional and state levels of competition. In many schools, the state competition team is determined in the early spring, thus allowing more than nine students to be involved in each school’s program until the final team is selected. The state champions compete in the national finals. All Pentathlon competitions (except for the national finals) take place online in a virtual testing environment so there is no travel required for teams!