I was wondering if it was possible to get into college based on debate or if the coach of a debate team can put in a word for an applicant/prospective debater. I’m mostly looking at UC Berkeley/U-Michigan (who both have great debate programs), but I’m also particularly interested in those 2 schools because of their engineering schools. I’ve attended a selective summer engineering program at UMich, gotten decent SAT scores (1500), and am currently ranked in the top 10 at a competitive school. I’m also an officer on my competition programming team, an officer on my robotics team, and captain of my school’s policy debate team (have received awards such as speaker awards/medals from multiple local/regional tournaments/one national circuit tournament). Essentially, I’m asking if committing to a debate program could supplement my current background/application and “seal the deal” for me to get into certain schools.
You probably can get into college as a recruited debater; but, like being a recruited athlete, it can be a bit chancy because the coach/recruiter is always on the lookout for a better candidate.
In addition to the schools that you mentioned, you might consider Bradley University in Peoria, IL. If you are interested in UMich and Berkeley, check out their common data sets in Part C7 for how they weigh different admissions factors; for example, UMich puts more emphasis on GPA than standardized test scores, and the UMich admissions office recalculates your GPA based on its own criteria.
Yes, but you need to be on the national circuit [so the college coaches, who often serve as judges, will have seen you] – and it’s not really being “recruited” as much as getting a slight edge in the admissions process. This may vary from school to school, but D had support from the coaches at 4 of the schools she was very interested in and got into 3 of them, and I’m convinced it played a role. Maybe if you win the ToC you can actually be recruited; making it to the ToC should at least put you on someone’s list.
NSDA is something to be proud of. Have you had any interactions with the Michigan & Cal coaches? They need to know who you are, because they certainly have other debaters on their radar. Dartmouth, Georgetown, Macalester, Emory & Wake Forest are other strong policy schools [or were in D’s days], but I have absolutely no knowledge of their engineering programs. I have to say that engineering & debate strikes me as a very tough load, since debate involves a lot of travel, and I would think that engineering probably has lots of labs that it would be problematic to miss. Good luck.
@AboutTheSame Hi! I haven’t had interactions with Michigan/Cal coaches. My lab leader at camp is an assistant debate coach at Wake, however. Thank you for the info!!!
Coach of a debate team can definitely put in a word for a debater if they want you to be on their team. DS18 reached out to both Cal and Michigan and a few others (and were admitted to all). All the coaches have seen my child debate at nats circuit. Not sure how much pull the coaches have. Some, but not a lot. I have a feeling that Wake and Emory coaches may have a bit more pull (compared to Cal/Michigan), Emory has a nice scholarship for debaters, too. Not sure about Georgetown and USC.
Northwestern is a great school with a fantastic policy debate program but I am not sure if they offer any recruitment support. I don’t think Duke has a policy debate program.
In D’s days (circa 2010), Northwestern had a reputation for not treating its female debaters equally. That may or may not have been an accurate assessment; it was certainly a strongly held belief among high school policy debaters at the time, and D got the same vibe the one summer she spent at the Northwestern debate program [although she found the program itself very good]. For all I know, they have a different coach now, and it may in fact be “a fantastic policy debate program …” It was certainly always a strong one.
Cal will be seeking competitive national circuit debaters, so your debate experience might not help your admission there. Keep in mind that some smaller colleges with parli teams love to get high school policy debaters who are willing to switch to parli.
List of National Debate Tournament Winners By School :
Northwestern University–won 15 different years with the most recent being 2015 & 2011
Harvard–7 time winners. Most recent 2016.
Dartmouth College–6 wins.
Univ. of Kansas–6 wins. Most recent = 2018.
Georgetown University–4 wins.
Baylor Univ. --3 wins.
Emory–3 wins.
Michigan State–3 wins.
Univ. of the Redlands–3 wins.
Alabama–2 wins.
Wake Forest University–2 wins.
Long list of schools with one win. Rutgers University has one win in 2017.
Not sure about recruiting, but Northwestern University awards two debate scholarships per year to students in need of financial aid (so that they can concentrate on debate & forensics).