<p>I was wondering if there were any good and exciting ECs that dealt with public speaking or debate, and how to get involved with them. I am already on the debate team at my school, but all we do is in-county stuff. I am also involved with JSA (President of chapter), and Model UN. </p>
<p>What other good ECs are there where you can win awards and be nationally ranked? How do you get involved in national/statewide events? </p>
<p>I was thinking that this thread could be a think-tank for different ECs relating to this topic.</p>
<p>Well, if you can push your school/debate team to go further than just in county, there are several different styles of debate that all compete on what's called the National Circuit. I know LD (Lincoln-Douglas) and Policy debate for sure have huge national circuits.</p>
<p>Yeah, just go to national tournaments as independent if you can't get the team to go, my partner and I were ranked like 30th in the country in Public Forum and were state champions.</p>
<p>Some good tournaments to look into:</p>
<p>Glenbrooks (Chicago, IL)
The Villiger (Philly, PA)
Wake Forest Earlybird (at Wake)
Harvard
Blue Key (University of Florida)
Vassar Round Robin (Vassar)
Tournament of Champions (have to qualify by breaking to outrounds at multiple national tournaments, in Kentucky for most events)
NFL Nationals (again, qualify, but on a district level, look into where your NFL Qualifier is next year)
CFL Nationals (see above)
States
Yale
Princeton Classic
UPenn
Barkley Forum, Emory University, Atlanta GA
LoboHowl Invitational/CDE Championships, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM
Stanford Invitational (Palo Alto, Calif.)<br>
U of C Berkeley, Berkeley, CA<br>
Apple Valley H.S. - Minneapolis (Appleton)</p>
<p>Youth in Government is a very good program, that i'm absolutely sure every state is a part of... You should start a program at your school, itll look really good on your college app.</p>
<p>Watch out for competition at tough tournaments like Harvard and Glenbrooks on the national circuit, though. To be really successful there it usually takes a tremendous amount of skill cuz of the competition.</p>
<p>To participate in any of those tournaments (NFL, CFL, etc.) does my school have to be affliated in any way? Or can I just get a partner (or do it by myself, I guess, depending on the debate format?) and qualify for the competitions independently?</p>
<p>For what it is worth, I believe the style of debate our debate team does is known as 'Oregon' debate...</p>
<p>I think some sort of affiliation goes down (for example, recording you as one of the qualified), but it really isn't that much more comlplicated than accepting an invitation or telling a school that you're participating in their tournament. Of course, it's a specific type of debate (I'm most familiar with policy and LD) that the debating has to fall into--they should have standardized style and times at the NFL site or wherever they keep it.</p>