Although not affiliated with the school, Senior Assassin has long been a tradition among Milken seniors, organized each year by students for students. Senior Assassin is a game where students are assigned a target (another student) who has to be squirted with a water gun; if the attacking student accomplishes this successfully, he or she advances to the next round. Students are also assigned a safety item that when worn keeps them safe from being eliminated.
This year, seniors Talya Stanislavsky (‘26) and Leah Melamed (‘26) took on the responsibility of running the game, coordinating rules, logistics, and communication for the entire grade.
Planning began weeks before the first round, with both students working together to build the structure of the game from the ground up.
“I would say it takes between a couple days and a week to set up all the rules in the app for the game,” Talya said. “Leah and I would sit down together and plan all the rules and go over any issues in them and fix it.”
The process involved managing everything from target assignments and payments to dispute resolution and rule enforcement. To stay organized, Talya and Leah relied on shared documents and digital tools to keep track of the moving pieces.
“I think the best way to stay organized is having a Google Doc where we can continuously add to it with notes, target assignments, payment, and everything else,” Talya said. “The Splashin app really helped us keep everything together and allowed us to have smooth transitions to the next round.”
While the game is meant to be fun, running it came with its own set of challenges. As organizers, they were responsible for making final decisions and ensuring that rules were consistently enforced, even when disputes over eliminations arose.
“I would say the biggest challenge in running a game like this is having the final say and making sure that we stick to our rules despite what people might say or what we might see in a video,” Talya said.
Despite those pressures, both organizers said the experience ultimately strengthened connections within the senior class.
“This game really bonded our grade together and made everyone talk to each other,” Leah said.
Students connected more throughout the weeks of gameplay, whether it was coordinating rides to avoid getting eliminated, forming temporary alliances to protect friends, or striking up conversations with classmates they normally wouldn’t speak to. Group chats that were once quiet became active with strategy discussions, and even students who weren’t especially close before found themselves working together and learning more about one another.
“Yes, it was a little difficult to make decisions, but luckily Talya and I worked together and counted on each other, so it ended up working out. We all loved the game.”
The organizers also noted areas for potential improvement in future years, including expanding the planning committee and increasing the buy-in to raise the final prize and intensity of the competition.
“Honestly, for next year, I would recommend a higher buy-in, more than $10, to make the prize money a lot more and keep it more intense,” Talya said. “Possibly making the planning committee bigger with both boys and girls to have equal representation.”
For Talya and Leah, however, the focus remained on creating an experience that seniors would remember, bonding everyone more during our last few months together.
“Overall it was so fun,” Talya said. “It’s definitely worth planning with people that are easy to communicate with.”
Though not officially endorsed by Milken, Senior Assassin continues to serve as a shared tradition that brings Milken’s graduating class together, offering one final opportunity for connection, competition, and community before the year comes to a close.