DECA took their District competition by storm and swept an entire category on January 13 with 140 students competing and 90 qualifiers for States.

Since the beginning of the school year, DECA has been preparing for District competitions through officer-run workshops and independent studying, according to advisor Patricia Riley.

“We do practice roleplays and practice tests, but before that we go over what each one is about and how to prepare,” Riley said. “So for tests, we give them multiple old tests. The more you do, the more you see that they use the same concepts over and over.”

Chapter president Jake DeMarco said the chapter meets once a month and most of the preparation lies in the hands of members themselves.

“A lot of members feel overwhelmed at competitions, but we try our best to prepare them,” DeMarco said. “We host these workshops where select students, depending on their category, come and work on practice tests and roleplays.”

In DECA, competitors take a cluster exam of four categories: hospitality, marketing, finances, and business management.  They also complete a roleplay where they are handed a scenario and are judged by a qualified adult on how well they analyze the situation.

State Officer Katie Miller is amazed by the progress DECA has made.

“It’s crazy to see how many kids that voluntarily do this, because it’s like they want to do a test and they want to do a 30-page paper,”  Miller said. “We actually swept one of the categories this year, so all six qualifiers were from Algonquin, and that was amazing.”

First place winners of Algonquin’s swept category Buying and Merchandising Team Decision Making Nathan Anderson and Casey Leonard were shocked at their placement in the competition.

“We weren’t expecting to win,” Anderson said. “We got the test and it was a lot harder than we thought it would be, but we thought the roleplay went pretty well, so to find out we won was a great feeling.”

Freshman Liza Armstrong feels grateful that she qualified for States for Team Management Business Hospitality.

“I feel that our performance was okay considering that the test was considered harder and it was our first role play with a professional judge,” Armstrong said. “However, I do think that me and my partner could have done better, but I’m happy that we did well enough to qualify for States.”

According to Vice President of Fundraising Nick Francalancia, DECA is now focusing on fundraising events to lower the cost of future competitions such as States and Internatial Career Development Conference (ICDC).

“It’s like 1,200 [dollars] for someone to go to ICDC, we never want the finance aspect of something to force them not to go,” Francalancia said.“You meet so many people from DECA, and we don’t want to take that experience away from someone because they can’t afford it.”