California High School Speech & Debate Champion, Is Speech the Best EC for admission?

Applying to College
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<p>The Wall Street Journal report did specifically highlight a "consistent trend"—one that forensic coaches have known for a long time—that dedicated participation in drama and debate has significantly increased the success rate of college applicants at all schools which track such data. State and national award winners have a 22% to 30% higher acceptance rate at top tier colleges and being captain of the debate team "improved an applicant's chances by more than 60% compared with the rest of the pool," according to the report. This is significantly better than other extracurricular activities that tend to recruit from the same pool of students as forensic teams such as school newspaper reporter (+3%), sports team captain (+5%), class president (+5%), and band (+3%). Even without winning major awards, participation in speech and debate develops valuable skills that colleges are seeking out and that is reflected in the above average acceptance rate (+4%). Colleges and universities today are looking for articulate thinkers and communicators who will become active citizens and leaders of tomorrow. </p>

<p><em>Can high school speech & debate alumni respond to this with their collegege acceptances. Do you belive speech and debate really helped you get in?</em></p>

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<p>legal bump...</p>

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<p>I've heard the same, and I sure hope everyone's right, because all of the above applies to me -- I'm captain, have state and national awards, etc. Haha, lucky us!</p>

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<p>yea what did you compete in? I won Oratorical Interpetation at the California State Championships in 2008 and got top 50 at the national tournament in duo.</p>

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<p>well i have done Policy sophomore year, LD and later PFD my Junior year, and am now a PFD debater in my high school. I have participated in many local and international/state tournaments (Blue Key at UF twice, Harvard invitational once). But with the current economic crisis, it looks like ill only be participating in local tournaments this year. :(</p>

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<p>I love PFD! : ) How did you do at Harvard last year?</p>

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<p>^Well i actually went to Harvard in my Soph year doing Policy, let me just say we went up against the previous year's TOC Champions and leave it at that (dam mixed tournament)</p>

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<p>haha oh i see. so you're not competing this year?</p>

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<p>^with the economy in shambles i cant afford national tournaments this year (my last year). So im going to only local tournaments..... X(</p>

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<p>What WSJ report?</p>

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<p>awww : ( yeah, i totally understand.</p>