Plain City—Remember the nervous feeling you get whenever you have to go to an interview, whether it’s for a job or for school? You hope you have everything prepared just right and that you don’t forget anything important or mess up on a question? Now imagine having to go to an interview and having it conducted in an entirely different language. It seems like a pretty daunting task; but, for Calder Lake, that’s exactly what he had to do and now his hard work has paid off as he gets to go study for four weeks over in Germany along with 44 other students from across the nation.
In order to make it as far as he did, Calder first had to complete the national German exam given by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). The exam is taken by 22,000 students each year around the U.S. and is comprised of 100 questions (multiple choice, true/false, and matching) that are all in German. Once a student has completed the exam, their score is compared to everyone else’s scores and then the top 10% in the nation move on to the next part that consists of writing short essays in German. Students then are interviewed in German by, “a committee comprised of high school teachers and college professors of German,” according to a press release from the AATG. The committee then chooses the lucky 45 students who will then have the amazing opportunity to study over in Germany. Calder was one of the students to be chosen and will spend time in Germany living with a German family, studying and attending high school in Germany, and also touring different parts of Germany June 24 through July 18. According to the AATG website, the organization is the “only individual membership organization in the United States dedicated to the teaching of the language, literature and culture of the German-speaking countries.”
Carolyn Sandstrom, who teaches German out at Fremont High School, said she is extremely proud of all of her students who took the exam. She said 37 students from Fremont took the exam, with three making it into the top 10% (Phillip Linson, Calder Lake, and Alex Ihns). Several other students also had impressive finishes: Alex Pulli, Alex Charters, Isaac Miller, Stephanie Williams, and Brennan Smith received Silver medals. Receiving Bronze and Achievement medals were: Brandon Conroy, Autumn Holloway, Tyler Howard, Bailey Conroy, Keenan Braunberger, Jeron Fields, Matthew Ashmead, Keegan Morby, and Cayden Peterson, according to the April 2015 Fremont newsletter. “It’s a huge accomplishment,” Carolyn said in a phone interview. She also mentioned how impressive it is for Calder to have competed as well as he has since he is not a native German speaker and his parents do not speak German either. Congratulations, Calder and viel glück!
