The Future Business Leaders of America Club won fourth place overall at the Gold Coast Section Leadership Conference Feb. 6.

According to senior and FBLA president Chris Lee, students compete in more than 35 competitive, business-related events. The events are broken up into three categories: performance events, such as public speaking; objective tests, which are multiple choice exams; and production tests, in which students complete portfolios in advance.

“[When choosing an event] I think it depends … whether you’re comfortable with public speaking or you’d rather take a test,” Lee said.

Lee himself won first place in an event called Future Business Leader, which included both a test and an on-site interview.

Sophomore Olivia Chang, who competed for the first time, chose to take an objective test called Principles and Procedures.

“I was told [objective tests] were the easiest,” Chang said. “And I think just in general, [since] this is my first year doing FBLA, I decided taking an objective test would be easier than going straight into performance events.”

Chang also won first place. Chang and Lee are two of 15 Oak Park students who qualified to attend the state competition.

“I was really nervous about it because it was my first time,” Chang said. “I didn’t really know what was happening but it dwindled away because I had a lot of great people and cabinet’s really nice and made everyone feel welcome.”

While the top five students in each category move on, the top 10 receive plaques. In addition to winning fourth place overall, 31 students out of 34 won plaques. But for Lee, this is only a modest victory.

“Two years ago we got third, and last year we got first,” Lee said. “But then we lost all our seniors so then we dropped again.”

However, he sees opportunity for future growth.

“I definitely think we have a lot of underclassmen this year, which definitely means that we’ll be improving in the next few years,” Lee said.

Junior Rithik Kumar, who is next year’s FBLA Club president, was also optimistic about its future.

“I’m going to be able to lead it next year and it’s going to be really fun,” Kumar said. “Hopefully we’re going to be on the rise next year.”

The FBLA team extends beyond the high school — this year, an FBLA chapter was founded at Medea Creek Middle School.

“There are about, I would say, 15 people from Medea Creek who went [to the conference] and then I think 3 qualified for state,” Lee said. “This is their first year, so this is really cool.”

For now, the team is focusing on the upcoming state conference.

“We’re really excited for the next level of competition,” Lee said.