The 27th National Geographic Bee was held on May 11–13, 2015 in Washington, District of Columbia.[1] It is sponsored by the National Geographic Society.[2] [3] Soledad O'Brien was the host for the second and final time. The winner was Karan Menon of John Adams Middle School in Edison, New Jersey, who won $50,000 in scholarships, a trip for 2 to the Galapagos Islands, and a lifetime membership to the National Geographic Society. The runner-up was Shriya Yarlagadda of Grand Blanc East Middle School in Grand Blanc, Michigan who won a $25,000 scholarship. The Third place winner was Sojas Wagle of Springdale, Arkansas, who won $10,000 in scholarships. Finishing in 4th place was Tejas Badgujar of Pennsylvania. The competition started with the school level rounds, in which more than 5 million students competed in 11,000 schools across the nation. Other students who placed in the top ten include Kapil Nathan of Alabama, Nicholas Monahan of Idaho, Patrick Taylor of Iowa, Abhinav Karthikeyan of Maryland, Lucy Chae of Massachusetts, and Shreyas Varathan of Minnesota. The Florida State Champion, Rishi Nair, became the 2016 National Geographic Bee Champion. The winners of the school bees then took a written qualification test to see who could qualify for the state level competition. The top 100 or so scorers on the qualification test in each state were selected to go for the state championship. The winners of the state championship would then get $100 in cash, a National Geographic 10th Edition Atlas, and the opportunity to represent their state in the National Finals held in Washington, DC.
The state representatives from each of the 50 U.S. states, Atlantic territories, Pacific territories, and Department of Defense dependents schools was determined on March 27, 2015 at the state level competitions.[4]
| State | Name | School | City/Town | Grade | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kapil Nathan | Mount Laurel Elementary School | Birmingham | 5th | T-9th | |
| Ben Ng | Floyd Dryden Middle School | Juneau | 7th | ||
| Cameron Danesh | On Track Academy | Scottsdale | 8th | ||
| Sojas Wagle | South West Junior High School | Springdale | 8th | 3rd | |
 Atlantic Territories | Christopher Sharpless | Antilles School | Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands | 8th | |
| Madhavan Krishnan | Sam H. Lawson Middle School | Cupertino | 6th | ||
| William Jacob (Jake) Hofgard | Louisville Middle School | Louisville | 7th | ||
| Alexander Koutsoukos | Middlebrook Middle School | Wilton | 7th | ||
| Rohan Kanchana | Newark Charter School | Newark | 6th | ||
| Department of Defense | Ethan Cooper | Menwith Hill Elementary/High School | Menwith Hill, United Kingdom | 8th | |
| Jacob Wall | British School of Washington | District of Columbia | 6th | ||
| Rishi Nair | Lincoln Magnet School | Plant City | 5th | ||
| Vibhav Kanyadan | The Walker School | Marietta | 7th | ||
| Mika Ishii | Kaimuki Middle School | Honolulu | 7th | ||
| Nicholas Monahan | Payette Lakes Middle School | McCall | 6th | 7th | |
| Alexandru Grindeanu | Gower Middle School | Burr Ridge | 8th | ||
| Thomas Gatewood | Western Middle School | Russiaville | 8th | ||
| Patrick Taylor | Northwest Junior High School | Coralville | 7th | T-5th | |
| Chinmay Patil | California Trail Middle School | Olathe | 7th | ||
| Pranav Kanmadikar | Meyzeek Middle School | Louisville | 6th | ||
| Ajaya Tummala | Caddo Middle Magnet School | Shreveport | 8th | ||
| Matthew Chase | Wells Junior High School | Wells | 8th | ||
| Abhinav Karthikeyan | Clearspring Elementary School | Damascus | 6th | T-5th | |
| Inwook (Lucy) Chae | Charles E. Brown Middle School | Newton Center | 7th | 8th | |
| Shriya Yarlagadda | Grand Blanc | 6th | 2nd | ||
| Shreyas Varathan | Shakopee Area Catholic School | Shakopee | 8th | T-9th | |
| Ian Espy | St. Andrews Episcopal School | Ridgeland | 8th | ||
| Nikhil Krishnan | Rockwood South Middle School | Fenton | 7th | ||
| Grace Rembert | Sacajawea Middle School | Bozeman | 7th | ||
| Brendan Pennington | Prairie Lane Elementary School | Omaha | 6th | ||
| Brian Montes | Adobe Middle School | Elko | 8th | ||
| Issac Stearns | Kearsarge Regional Middle School | North Sutton | 7th | ||
| Karan Menon | John Adams Middle School | Edison | 8th | 1st | |
| Lakshay Sood | Manzano Day School | Albuquerque | 4th | ||
| Arnav Patra | Heim Middle School | Williamsville | 7th | ||
| Ian Garnto | West Alexander Middle School | Taylorsville | 8th | ||
| Sean Ness | Valley Middle School | Grand Forks | 6th | ||
| Suyash Dixit | Shananan Middle School | Lewis Center | 8th | ||
| Grant Talkington | Brink Junior High School | Oklahoma City | 7th | ||
| Ashwin Sivakumar | Oregon Episcopal School | Portland | 5th | ||
  Pacific Territories | Ethan Thomas Storie | Bishop Baumgartner Memorial Catholic School | Sinajana | 8th | |
| Tejas Badgujar | Hampton Middle School | Allison Park | 8th | 4th | |
| Eli Fulton | Rhode Island of Home Educators (Home School) | Rumford | 7th | ||
| Nicholas Gringat | St Anne's School | Rockhill | 8th | ||
| Damian Hierrera | Dakota Valley Middle School | North Sioux City | 8th | ||
| John Webster | Evangelical Christian School Macon | Cordova | 7th | ||
| Joseph Afuso | Bishop Garriga Middle School | Corpus Christi | 8th | ||
| Gauri Garg | Bear River Charter School | North Logan | 8th | ||
| David Liebowitz | Weybridge Elementary School | Weybridge | 6th | ||
| Alexander Perdue | Andrew Lewis Middle School | Salem | 8th | ||
| Nick Harrington | Lakeside Middle School | Seattle | 8th | ||
| Hunter Midcap | St. Michael Parrish School | Wheeling | 6th | ||
| Joshua Frank | Fall River School | Fall River | 7th | ||
| Annika Coberly | Upton Middle School | Upton | 8th |
The 10 Finalists in this year's Final round were Nicholas Monahan from Idaho, Karan Menon from New Jersey, Sojas Wagle from Arkansas, Abhinav Karthikeyan from Maryland, Patrick Taylor from Iowa, Lucy Chae from Massachusetts, Kapil Nathan from Alabama, Shreyas Varathan from Minnesota, Shriya Yarlagadda from Michigan, and Tejas Badgujar from Pennsylvania. This years finals had many new changes including a 45-second oral response, a series of 3 questions asked at the US Botanical Gardens, and lightning rounds, where a finalist would get 3 questions in a row, with only 6 seconds to answer each. In one of these rounds, Karan, the state champion of New Jersey was asked "The Mesabi range contains a large deposit of what metal-bearing mineral?" Karan's answer of taconite was originally marked wrong (the given answer was iron ore), but later he would object and prove to the judges that his answer was correct. Shriya Yarlagadda, from Michigan maintained a perfect score throughout most of the competition. In the end, the top 2 students were Karan of New Jersey and Shriya of Michigan. Karan got a perfect score of 7/7 in the championship round, while Shriya only missed the first question. "Mariupol, a city located at the mouth of the Kalmius River, is located on what sea that is an arm of the Black Sea?" Answer: "Sea of Azov." The final question that clinched the win for Karan was "If completed, the proposed Grand Inga Dam would become the world’s largest hydropower plant. This dam would be built near Inga Falls on which African river?" Answer: "Congo River." The Third place winner was Sojas Wagle of Springdale, Arkansas, who won $10,000 in scholarships. Finishing in 4th place was Tejas Badgujar of Allison Park, Pennsylvania.