Author Paul Tough wrote in How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (2012): the chess program in the Intermediate School 318 is the best middle-school program in the United States, bar none.

[5] In 2009, the team won the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade titles at the United States Chess Federation's National Scholastic K-12 Championship.

[8][12] By 2012, it had won at least two dozen national championships since 2000, according to one of its coaches, and two of its members, both 13 years of age, were rated as chess masters.

[8] Team member Rochelle Ballantyne, who was raised by a single mom from Trinidad and is aiming to become the first African-American woman to become a chess master, said: "We were meant to break stereotypes.

"[10] Team member Justus Williams became the youngest-ever African-American "National Master", at the age of 12.

[5][13] Team member Isaac Barayev, 2012 New York City junior high school chess champion, is the grandson of émigrés from the former Soviet Union.

[17] The school's chess team was followed and featured in a 2012 documentary film entitled Brooklyn Castle.