<p>unfortunately, given that your school has no debate program, there aren't less demanding routes than camp. Debate as it is in the NFL is not simply a "go and talk about stuff" activity. both lincoln douglas and policy are enormously complex, and require a great deal of time, effort, and experience to learn both.</p>
<p>however, $3000 isn't exactly necessary. Especially for a complete novice such as yourself, camps such as KU offer 2 week programs for around $800. Emory's two week program is not much more, and concordia offers a fantastic program for reasonable prices in northern minnesota.</p>
<p>assuming you go to camp, look around and see if other schools in your area have programs. It is not unheard of for schools to consolodate for a debate team, and many teams would not be opposed to bringing someone else on, provided that they are enthusiastic and eager to learn debate. If that doesn't work out, you can try to individually register yourself at local tournaments, I suppose, but i think that registration fees are usually too expensive for individuals. hope this helps.</p>
<p>kansas is NOT one of the most competitive policy states. I went to camp there twice, and although KU is a reasonable camp, many of the people there were involved in conservative, slow policy debate. i even got speed kritik'd at the camp tournament. the most competitive states are: Texas, Georgia, California, Iowa, Illinois, and Minnesota. I may have missed a few, but Texas and Georgia together have the best debate in the nation by far. both in policy and ld.</p>
<p>mnben i'd agree with your post. you forgot lexington and the one prep school in FL. they are strong programs but the overall state is lacking in good debate schools.</p>
<p>there are much better camps. most of your camps are concentrated in the midwest region. there's gonzaga, whitman, stanford, vbi, and berkeley in the west coast. there's spartan, mich in the midwest. theres capitol classic in dc, yale (ld?), and the grandday of them all, dartmouth. and via invitation only the kentucky one.</p>
<p>mnben, i definitely agree, i didn't mean that KS was the best policy state or anything like that. but i think many non-debaters would be surprised, as i was, to find that kansas (think of the kansas stereotypes) ranks in at least the top 15 states in the nation in policy debate.</p>
<p>I disagree with that first part choopity.
Policy, in terms of learning communication and public speaking skills is probably the most useless of the three styles. the current ld world is very open to more "progressive" argumentation that you would find in policy, but it's understandable to debaters and laypeople alike.
I do think that policy takes a lot more work than LD to reach an acceptable level of competency - but to do WELL in either, it takes hours and hours of work. </p>
<p>ronlivs:
When people say "debate is a cult" or "debate rules my life" - they're generally not very far from the truth. Debate-land is a fantastic, exciting place, and it welcomes all, but it's demanding to say the least. </p>
<p>what grade are you in? if you're a junior in the northeast, I suggest you get a partner and start in on public forum. It takes less time to prepare/understand, and it'll help you hone down your public speaking skills.
In any case, all you have to do is:
Grab the rules/regulations off nflonline.org, do a search for a local tournament, find an advisor and get school permision in order to do the nitty-gritty registration stuff, prepare a couple of cases and give it a whirl!</p>
<p>^ it may be a little harder to do than that, but it's certainly worth it.</p>
<p>do you guys know if stanford forensic institute--extemp lab or the IE camp at northwestern are super duper competitive?
i've only done 4 tournaments for my event (fx) bc our team just started & i don't even have a coach. i broke into finals for 1 & semif in another. what are my chances of getting in?</p>