Holmdel Students Compete at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York

HOLMDEL, NJ - A team of Holmdel High School seniors recently had the chance to participate in the High School Fed Challenge, an extremely elite competition hosted by the Federal Reserve bank in New York City.

The Hornets were represented by four seniors from Holmdel's AP Economics class: Jenny Chu, Jennifer He, Brian DeSousa and Michael Stefany. The students qualified for the trip based on combined final grades in Sal Guastella's AP Macroeconomic and Microeconomic courses.

The students took on roles as monetary policymakers, analyzing economic conditions and recommending monetary policy. The four Holmdel students received high praise from the interviewers, who are senior Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists. The first day of the competition involved a series of presentations by the pros that helped students engage in developing their team’s economic forecast that they then presented on the following day. Presentations were followed by a series of questions from the economists designed to test the team’s knowledge and acumen on the topic.

The Holmdel seniors will now wait to see if they will advance to the next round out of the 60 other teams against whom they competed.

Michael Stefany, one of Holmdel’s team members described the competition as “a great way to apply what I had learned in the classroom in a real-world context.” He appreciated the opportunity to “take on the challenge of analyzing current economic conditions in order to develop a forecast and recommend a monetary policy response to the Federal Reserve."

His teammate, Brian DeSousa, echoed Stefany’s outlook. DeSousa felt the competition allowed him to “go beyond the classroom, and truly apply the lessons from AP Economics to the real world, particularly in analyzing data about our current economy and how data can be used to predict future trends.” He also noted that he initially had doubts about being prepared for event, but afterwards suggested that a typical Holmdel student who had taken Holmdel's rigorous AP course would be comfortable competing.

Mr. Guastella has a particular interest in continuing to offer opportunities like this for his students. With a career in the financial sector before becoming a teacher, he recognizes the value of these competitions for his seniors, especially as they move on to college where they will hone their interests in various fields.