Persisting: Thinking About College Debate
By: Jaya Nayar
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably pretty invested in debate. As such a huge part of our lives, it’s important to think about how debate factors into the college process. I wanted to share some tips I’ve learned while talking with college debate coaches.
That’s the first tip: talk with the coaches. Even if you’re on the fence about if you want to do college debate, it’s far better to put yourself out there and attempt to learn about the program than to stay silent. Something I’ve realized is that it doesn’t matter how “good” you are in high school, and college coaches know that too. If you express interest in a program, for most coaches, that automatically makes them interested in you since they want students to debate at their school. So it’s important you take that (admittedly) daunting first step towards contacting these coaches and let them know that you’re potentially interested. Besides helping you decide if you want to continue debate at their school, the coaches are also often valuable resources for learning about the school more generally, which hopefully gives you more of an incentive to reach out to them!
The second tip is to talk to debaters on the team. Ask the coaches if it’s possible for them to put you in contact with debaters on the team. If you’re too nervous to talk to a coach, contacting debaters over social media or email is a less nerve-wrecking alternative. This will allow you to get a better feel for the school and a more honest perspective on college debate.
The third and final tip is to write out a list of questions you want to ask before you call or meet with a coach (or student). Here’s some questions you might want to consider asking:
How have you found that most students manage debate work with school and missing classes?
How much of the evidence production is student-run and how much of it is coaches?
What’s the team’s expectation on how much work each debater should do in order to compete nationally? Are there requirements on card files to go to tournaments?
In terms of coaching, how much 1 on 1 time can each student expect based on how much work they’re willing to put in? Related to that, how many coaches are there and how accessible are they?
How big is the team itself in terms of students?
Did most of the kids do high school debate / what was their debate experience?
How many tournaments does the team travel to?
Are there travel restrictions unique to freshmen? Otherwise, how many tournaments do freshmen usually get to travel to?
Are there any scholarship opportunities for debate?
Hopefully this helps! Good luck seniors - we’ll power through this together :)