Sophie Hu ’26, Feature Editor

Some faculty and student predictions for 2025. (Generated using myfreebingocards.com)

From the outset, the 2020s have been a decade marked by unpredictability. Who would have guessed that a global pandemic, the banning of the most popular social media app and the advent of powerful generative AI would all occur within the same five-year time frame? As we enter the second half of this unique decade, I thought it would be interesting to see how NA community members would try to make sense of the madness, and what they see for the future. Each prediction offers insight into the hopes, dreams and fears Newark Academy is bringing to 2025. 

See how many you agree with, how many you think will never happen, how many you really, really want to come true — just because it would be hilarious if they did. You could try making your own predictions!

Predictions about NA

• Gavin Elbert ’26: “Fencing girls will go undefeated in a meet but won’t win because not enough fencers showed up.”
• Leila Ricot ’26:
  • “The schedule will be changed again by next year.”
  • “The NA football team will go undefeated next season.”
• Lyra Brock ’26: “The AI Committee continues to grow in popularity and gets into a fight with the Sustainability Committee because ChatGPT consumes too much energy, ultimately ending in a face-off between Mr. Stourton and the entirety of the AI Committee.”
• Anouk Hemingway ’25: “There will only be two snow days this entire year.”
• Mr. Hawk: “NA’s going to have another version of the dress code that no one understands.”

Sports Predictions:

• Alexander Dang ’26: “Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is going to win the NBA MVP this year.”
• Gibson Fischer ’26: “The Jets are going to win the Presidents’ Cup.”

Pop Culture, Arts and Entertainment

• Diya Ramachandran ’26: “Mr. Beast gets canceled.”
• Emily Opper ’26: “Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will get engaged.”
• Minji Kim ’27: “The next fashion trend will be toe shoes.”
• Minji: “We’re going to move away from the Y2K/Grunge aesthetic and go towards Boho/hippy.”
• Alexander Dang ’26: “Drake is going to end up dropping the toughest album ever.”
• Dati: “Therapy is going to be canceled.”

Policies and Politics

• Xavier Atwell ’26: “California will reduce the firefighters’ budget (again).”
• Divya Rai ’26: “Buldak ramen gets banned for its high capsaicin content.”

Technology

• Divya: “There will be more mysterious drones in the sky”
• Phoebe Kaplan ’25: “An entirely AI generated movie will be released.”
• Veera Jetley ’25: “There will be a collision in space because of all the space-junk.”

Natural Phenomenon

• Tunde Fagbemi ’26: “The sky will turn yellow again.”
• Olivia Dai ’26: “There’s going to be another pandemic.”
• Abi Mengitsu ’27: “New Jersey’s going to be hit with another earthquake.”
• Sophia Mu ’27: “It’s going to hail in the summer.”

Miscellaneous…?

• Mr. Allen: “April 17th will be the day…”