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What opportunities are there to debate in college? Do most schools have a team? Can you do LD, or is there only policy at the college level? Do schools give any scholarships to debaters?
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College debate questions!
Db8rBoi- Elimination Rounds
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arurra- Dedicated Minion
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There are several collegiate debate leagues.
NFA is the LD league. I haven't heard much about it, but I believe it is fairly traditional, policy-esque and explicitly prohibits kritiks.
CEDA is the policy league. It is very progressive and ripe with performance debates, Ks etc.
APDA is the parli league. It is mostly Ivy League plus Stanford oriented. It is fairly traditional and does not have resolutions. Instead, the aff presents a case about anything (as long as its debatable) and the opp debates it. There is almost no theory, as it is replaced by "community norms." APDA debaters also tend to be active in international debates.
NPDA is the bigger, more progressive parli league. It is like high school parli (similar time limits, resolutions change each round), but it is a lot more tech, and is often described as "policy without cards." I would personally recommend NPDA-style parli, as it is a lot less time-consuming than college policy, but still allows for fairly technical quality debates. It is also the biggest debate league in college.
Lots of schools have a team, although the number of schools that have a policy team has been dwindling recently. You should research the specific schools you are interested in. A good place to look for NPDA teams is NPTE rankings. The benefit of attending a college with a debate team is that the college or the college-held tournament will pay all your debate expenses, which is nice, since college debate tends to be a lot more expensive (without an established team) than high school debate.
Scholarships are mostly awarded to TOC-level high school policy debaters; I don't think colleges are particularly interested in LD, as LD is not very established on college level.
NFA is the LD league. I haven't heard much about it, but I believe it is fairly traditional, policy-esque and explicitly prohibits kritiks.
CEDA is the policy league. It is very progressive and ripe with performance debates, Ks etc.
APDA is the parli league. It is mostly Ivy League plus Stanford oriented. It is fairly traditional and does not have resolutions. Instead, the aff presents a case about anything (as long as its debatable) and the opp debates it. There is almost no theory, as it is replaced by "community norms." APDA debaters also tend to be active in international debates.
NPDA is the bigger, more progressive parli league. It is like high school parli (similar time limits, resolutions change each round), but it is a lot more tech, and is often described as "policy without cards." I would personally recommend NPDA-style parli, as it is a lot less time-consuming than college policy, but still allows for fairly technical quality debates. It is also the biggest debate league in college.
Lots of schools have a team, although the number of schools that have a policy team has been dwindling recently. You should research the specific schools you are interested in. A good place to look for NPDA teams is NPTE rankings. The benefit of attending a college with a debate team is that the college or the college-held tournament will pay all your debate expenses, which is nice, since college debate tends to be a lot more expensive (without an established team) than high school debate.
Scholarships are mostly awarded to TOC-level high school policy debaters; I don't think colleges are particularly interested in LD, as LD is not very established on college level.
poneill- Elimination Rounds
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arurra wrote:
Scholarships are mostly awarded to TOC-level high school policy debaters; I don't think colleges are particularly interested in LD, as LD is not very established on college level.
Are you talking about HS LD or College LD? Because Successful circuit debaters in LD are often times more than capable of competing in College Policy at a relatively high level. A huge portion of the MN LD Judging pool this year debated policy for the U of MN
arurra- Dedicated Minion
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I am saying high school LD debaters get a lot less debate scholarships for their freshman year in college than high school policy debaters do. Whether this is justified is another question.
Db8rBoi- Elimination Rounds
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Good stuff. On a similar note, what is the difference between CEDA and the NDT. Some Google searches seem to indicate that there are two different tournaments, so is this like NFL and CFL in high school, or are the leagues much more separated than simply hosting different national championships?
poneill- Elimination Rounds
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Db8rBoi wrote:Good stuff. On a similar note, what is the difference between CEDA and the NDT. Some Google searches seem to indicate that there are two different tournaments, so is this like NFL and CFL in high school, or are the leagues much more separated than simply hosting different national championships?
No NDT and CEDA are fairly close. NDT is kinda like NFLs (the older tournament, regional qualifiers, etc), and CEDA is like nothing in High School. It is an open National Championship (no qualification process). It clears to Partial quads (so yes potentially 128 people could clear).
They're just two different national championships for the same organization.
arurra wrote:I am saying high school LD debaters get a lot less debate scholarships for their freshman year in college than high school policy debaters do. Whether this is justified is another question.
This is true for top tier programs, but if you're really interested in debating in college, talk to the coach. They might not be able to give you a scholarship but there's a chance they could help you get financial aid from the school.
JohnnyFontane- Elimination Rounds
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On NFA-LD, I have heard that it isn't really LD as we know it. It definitely isn't value debate, and the policy structure is the norm. The way it has been explained to me has been that NFA is essentially a less intense, one vs. one form of policy.
On the scholarship question, I have heard that it is pretty close to impossible to get a debate scholarship. Very few schools apparently divert a ton of money to the debate team to begin with. Within that handful of schools, there are apparently a few scholarships up for grabs, but I think a previous poster is right in suggesting that top-ranked policy debaters have the best shot at that money. Not to mention the fact that "debate scholarships" are probably near the top of the list of things to cut when most universities across the country are facing a budget crisis due to the financial downturn!
On the scholarship question, I have heard that it is pretty close to impossible to get a debate scholarship. Very few schools apparently divert a ton of money to the debate team to begin with. Within that handful of schools, there are apparently a few scholarships up for grabs, but I think a previous poster is right in suggesting that top-ranked policy debaters have the best shot at that money. Not to mention the fact that "debate scholarships" are probably near the top of the list of things to cut when most universities across the country are facing a budget crisis due to the financial downturn!
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