At the end of the year, Sidwell seniors participate in a game known as Senior Assassin. Similar to Quaker Games, Each senior is assigned one person as a target to eliminate, and eliminations occur when a senior shoots their target with a water gun. At the end of each week, the targets are reshuffled based on who got out the previous week, and this process continues until only one person is left.
Seniors are allowed to wear innertubes, goggles, or floaties, which act as protection against elimination. Due to this rule, many seniors constantly wear poolgear.
Another rule is that if a player has not eliminated anyone after two weeks, they will be automatically eliminated. Players also cannot eliminate a target if either person is in a moving vehicle. Whether the target or the assassin is in a moving vehicle, the elimination will not count if it doesn’t abide by this rule.
Players aren’t allowed to eliminate people on Sidwell’s campus, but otherwise have free range. Unlike the Quaker Games, where eliminations could only occur at school during school hours, the Sidwell campus is a safeground during Senior Assassin. Eliminations have occurred in many locations, including inside targets’ houses, at the airport and at restaurants.
The game takes place during the spring, starting the day after seniors are let out of school for the year
Each senior is required to pay $5 to play. While participating is not a requirement, almost a hundred seniors are in the game. At the end of the month, the senior last standing receives a $490 cash prize.
Seniors use Splashin, an app designed specifically for Senior Assassin, to track each other and see each participant’s location. There is a premium setting on the app that allows players to receive more information on their target and a more specific and constant pinpoint on their location. However, other players can see that you have the premium setting.
Furthermore, Splashin increases the ease of the game. Senior Nick Beveridge said that “The app is pretty helpful, it does the target shuffling and makes life easier.” Without the app, a student or another teacher would have to do the shuffling and tallying of eliminations by hand. Beveridge revealed that the only downside was that the app only updates the location every ten minutes unless you had purchased the premium version.
Eliminations are only valid if a video is sent to the Instagram account. Eliminations are posted to the Instagram page and show a picture of the person, the names of both people and the video sent in of the elimination. In addition, the target is assigned a rank based on how quickly they were eliminated. For example, the first senior eliminated was given the ranking of #99 and the last will be ranked as #1.
Many seniors team up with their friends to help each other get their targets. The game also has a reputation of high competitiveness, and many students will get their own friends out.
Senior Max Snow drove all the way to Dulles Airport in order to get his target, Harlan Katyal, in the baggage claim.
While some seniors are highly competitive, many are not as committed. Beveridge described how some “people are medium committed,” while there are other “people going into [other] people’s houses and camping outside of places.”
More than 30 seniors have already been eliminated. Senior Oliva Dietrich described her mixed feelings, saying “I really wanted to stay in the game longer, but I’m happy to not have to wear an innertube in public anymore … I feel so much less stressed walking in the mall or Georgetown.”
Senior Kathleen Blass is still in the game, and stated that “I’m not worried about the automatic elimination because I already got someone out … Senior Assassins has been really fun, but tracking someone is definitely harder than people thought it would be even with the app. My friend can’t get her target because they’re currently in Europe.”