A team of Wellesley High School students is among 16 competitors in this season’s High School Quiz Show on WGBH-TV.
The students last month made it through a field of 100 teams during a qualifying round, and the shows based on single-elimination competition among the final 16 public high school teams from Massachusetts will begin taping in January. It’s unclear from the WGBH website when the shows will be aired, though it sounds like it will be February. This is the show’s fourth season.
Wellesley High team members are: Rishi Solanki – Grade 11; Brian Rappaport – Grade 11; Alex Mitchell – Grade 12; Merritt Losert – Grade 12. Alternates: Kevin Hu – Grade 10; Bennett Capozzi – Grade 12.
The students built the team, seeking out members with diverse interests, and asked math and computer science teacher Dr. Robert Cohen to be their advisor. Cohen says Wellesley has competed twice but that this is the first time the team has made it to televised round.
“The team has been preparing by watching past shows and practicing. They quiz each other with questions from a diverse range of sources, mostly online. They have been coaching and quizzing each other primarily through social media,” Cohen says.
Five of the six participants are on the school’s Academic Decathalon team, which has placed second in the state for the past 2 years. That team has been coached by John Finneron, an English teacher. 
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