In the last two years, Dunbar High School Junior Andrew Chuang Saladin has made quite a name for himself in the Microsoft Office Specialist Championship series. Two state championships, two national championships, a world championship and at the end of July, a 2nd place finish in the world competition.
“Hearing my name brought up a lot of emotions,” Andrew says. “I was a little bummed but then realized you can’t complain about finishing second in the world.”
This year’s competitions were different than his first year. The national and world competitions were in person instead of online. That gave Andrew the opportunity to meet fellow competitors, which he says made this year so much better. “We got to see people and make friends,” he says. “It gave us people to root for.”
The Microsoft Office Specialist Championship series, presented by Certiport, a Pearson VUE Business, is a competition that tests students’ skills on Microsoft Office, Word, Excel® and PowerPoint®. At the state and national level, competitors are given a printed copy of a document, spreadsheet, or presentation to recreate along with printed instructions and digital assets. They are scored according to the accuracy and speed of the recreation compared to the original. The world championships include a three-hour project to design a document, spreadsheet or presentation. “They’ll add things you’ve never seen before,” Andrew says. “It’s definitely not an easy test.”
At the end of his freshman year, Andrew was named State Champion in PowerPoint 2019 with a perfect score. That perfect score propelled him to a national championship a month later and he was the world champ in PowerPoint 2019 after the fall competition.
In his sophomore year, he focused on Excel 2016, winning the state title in January of 2022, the national title in June and then second in the world in July. He’s still got two years of high school left. “Next year I plan to do word. The year after that I plan step into the Adobe competition, which is also sponsored by Certiport.”
Since Dunbar began competing in 2011, the school has had 29 state champions seven national champions and the rare distinction of having three Microsoft World Champions. Andrew is the first student to repeat as a national champion. His school’s success is part of what drives him to compete. “We have really good support,” he says. “Our principal is extremely proud of us and we want to show what our school has to offer. The past champions set the example.”
Qualifying for the 2022 championship series begins this fall.