During the month of March, DMAE students participated in its first and hopefully last virtual March Madness. From the comfort of their own homes, students showcased fierce loyalties to their teams and competed against others. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and virtual schooling, there was some uncertainty about how the event would work this year and if there would even be a March Madness. Despite the challenges, the March Madness team managed to deliver a well-planned event that reinvigorated excitement within the student body. 

“The people who set up March Madness this year worked hard to make this year as close to the ‘typical’ March Madness event as possible” Senior Sienna Tu praised. “I’m really glad we were able to have March Madness this year despite being fully virtual!” Sienna added.

Along with it being the first virtual, this year’s March Madness transitioned into a school-wide event that featured DM and AE students participating in the excitement of representing their grade or academy, respectively. As in previous years, each day of March had a specific theme and students dressed up to represent that theme; however, this year, students put up a Microsoft Teams background and/or wore a shirt that represented the theme of that day to gain their points. Game Day was also different from past years: this year students joined a zoom webinar and watched their team representative battle it out in a game of Kahoot.

“The most difficult challenge we faced was trying to move the entire event online while still keeping the same hype and energy as in person,” said senior Krisna Panchal who was head of the March Madness team. “We had to make a lot of swaps, but in the end, we were able to figure it out and had a super fun and memorable event!” Krisna added.

On the day of March 31, the entire school engaged in the highly anticipated Game Day. Hundreds of students and faculty tuned in to the virtual competition to cheer for a grade or academy and see who would reign victorious in the 2021 March Madness. Selected representatives from each team gave their all to try and answer trivia questions in a correct and quick manner. 

“The whole thing was really fun, but my favorite part was having a Game Day with the whole school,” freshman Bora Temel said.

Despite being a virtual event, March Madness created a fun, energetic atmosphere. Students screaming from behind their screens and the zoom chat stream mimicked the exhilaration of the roaring crowd from previous Game Days. Ultimately, the champions of March Madness this year were Freshman and Finance Academy.