<p>I’m somewhat accomplished as a high school debater—certainly not one of the tippy top in the country, but among the best in my (relatively populous) state.</p>
<p>With that in mind, what do you think are the most “obvious” schools for high school debaters to apply to, and which selective schools see less than their share? I know that Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale all receive debater applications in extreme excess. Is there any applicant pool in which a state-championship-level debater (from a rural public high school, in an underrepresented geographic area of her state that had never before fielded a state championship team, if that matters at all) would be more sought-after?</p>
<p>I’m reading this in my hotel room at the TOC.</p>
<p>Thinking back on the schools I was considering, I remember specifically Claremont McKenna College, Dartmouth College, Brown University, and Yale University as schools which were pretty big on debate. Of course being in debate will help your application at any school; doing well or serving as an officer will do you even better, but I can’t say for sure if certain schools’ applicant pools become ‘saturated’ with specific characteristics. For example, the article you mentioned cited that Stanford is in need of singers, but being in the All-State mixed choir in Texas wasn’t good enough to get me accepted (or even waitlisted for that matter).</p>
<p>Still, I think I’ll be very happy with my college choice next fall. I was accepted at Dartmouth and will matriculate there later this year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, Wwoody. And congratulations! :)</p>
<p>tickytock, I’m a policy debater, and would certainly be happy to debate in college, although I’m not sure how doing so would be impacted by how parliamentary-dominated most schools’ programs seem to be.</p>
<p>And gbesq, thanks for the list. Do you think that there’s a correlation between schools that have really successful college-level debate programs, and those that receive high numbers of applications from top high school debaters?</p>
<p>the schools that are consistently best for policy debate are Emory, Northwestern, Harvard, Cal, Dartmouth, Kansas, and Wake Forest. There are, of course, other but these are the schools that come to mind as always having great teams.</p>
<p>Thanks, that’s good to know. I’m interested in knowing what schools have strong college-level debate programs, but more so in those which consistently attract large numbers of debaters to apply, regardless of the strength (or existence) of a college program. Do you think that many high school debaters take college-level performance into much consideration when choosing a college? That more of the strongest high school debaters apply to Eastern New Mexico University (in the NDT top 90) than Amherst (not on it)?</p>
<p>I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Western Kentucky U. Not necessarily a debate powerhouse, but the top of the heap when it comes to speech, meaning the applicant pool would likely be flooded with the same type of people.</p>
<p>I’d gladly trade to have your problem! The schools I looked at had CX teams, but not parliamentary.</p>
<p>What do you want to study? Is your primary goal to find a really good school where your CX experience will get you through the door? OR do you really want to continue Policy in college?</p>
<p>It’s pretty low tier, but you might Look into the University of Illinois. A friend from my team, with very minimal experience in LD, worked her way to a full ride scholarship there within a year for doing CX. I don’t know the details, but I imagine they would be in pursuit of good, experienced debaters like you. Good education program. What state are you from?</p>
<p>I know Ohio State also has a CX team. Don’t know anything about them except for its existence. It’s admissions are pretty lax in the first place though. Good Poli Sci Program.</p>
<p>I have a friend that’s a policy debater at Wake Forest (graduating this year). I believe last year they had a team take 2nd at the NDT… it’s a pretty successful and intense program, and I know they offer debate scholarships. He’s really enjoyed his time there.</p>
<p>Whitman College also has a very active team, and I think they offer up to full tuition scholarships for debaters.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what debating circuit gbesq refers to, but the one that schools like HPYS debate on is the American Parliamentary Debate Association. You can see the standings this year: [APDA</a> Web - Standings](<a href=“http://www.apdaweb.org/standings]APDA”>http://www.apdaweb.org/standings)</p>
<p>Teams of the Year:
Bone/Rohrbach (Yale)
Kwasniewski/Sheltzer (Princeton)
Goldstein/Clark-Adams (MIT)
Baer/Mitra (Stanford)
Suri/Withall (JHU)
Childers/Baia (JHU)
Rauch/Shih (Princeton)
Hill/Strahs (W&M)
Boghosian/Silverblatt (Tufts)
Lamboy/Zhou (Amherst)</p>
<p>That gives you an idea of where the top debaters come from - and where you’re likely to find good debating programs and talent to help you grow. In addition to perennial powers like Princeton and Yale, schools like W&M and JHU typically produce strong teams consistently.</p>
<p>There was also a College of the Year award introduced to APDA this year, which is given to the school with the best aggregate debate performance in a year. I’m unable to find overall rankings for it, but I believe Princeton tops the list, and if I had to guess, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Harvard, JHU, and W&M probably follow right behind in some order.</p>
<p>Hey thanks, Silly Puddy. The APDA was what I referring to when I said that most of the schools I looked at seemed to be parliamentary-dominated. I kind of get the sense that just looking at policy rankings to see where debaters end up is skewed, b/c so many schools choose not to do policy.</p>
<p>And thanks to both pretzelbreaker and DCforMe. Heehee, DC, I swear I’m not so limited in my vision as to only care about finding where my CX experience will “get me through the door.” I have a pretty clearly-defined idea of what I want to study and hope to get out of a college experience, and which schools fit that criteria; my goal in this post was just to figure out how that list overlapped (or didn’t) with the schools where my background might be more valued.</p>
<p>So, is the overall conclusion from this thread that a debater applying to selective schools who chooses Northwestern/Dartmouth/Harvard/Emory/Wake or the APDA top 10 listed above is generally doing the same thing as those described in the original post (creative writers choose Sarah Lawrence, philosophers choose Princeton and NYU, etc.)?</p>
I have a pretty clearly-defined idea of what I want to study and hope to get out of a college experience, and which schools fit that criteria; my goal in this post was just to figure out how that list overlapped (or didn’t) with the schools where my background might be more valued.</p>