US Excels at National Debate Tournament

Five University School students finished in the top 25 in the National Speech and Debate Association national tournament and the school took home the School of Excellence in Debate award, given to the top 20 debate schools in the country. US had seven students attend the tournament.

 

Karchen Lhatoo ‘17 advanced to the 15th round in Lincoln-Douglas debate and finished in 4th place of 260 Lincoln-Douglas debaters. This is the highest a US student has ever placed in Lincoln-Douglas at the national tournament. Karchen's only losses were to the first- and second-place finishers.  

 

Will Frankel ’17 and Akshat Chowksey ’18 advanced to the 12th round in Public Forum debate, placing them in the top 18 teams out of 273 Public Forum teams.  

 

In World Schools Debate, Rahul Jagetia ‘18 and his team made it to the second elimination round and finished in 11th place, and Isaiah Paik ’18 and his team advanced to first elimination round and finished 23rd out of 173 teams.

Two other team members who qualified and competed at nationals were Andrew Gilmore ’17 in Lincoln-Douglas debate and Wyatt Sweeney ’19 in Big Questions debate. 

 

This is the 7th time in the last 10 years that US has won the School of Excellence trophy.  Roughly 1,000 schools attend nationals, this year held in Birmingham, AL, from June 18-24.  

 

Coaches who attended nationals were Peter Paik, James Lewis ‘00, Humzah Quereshy ‘13, and Will Walker ‘13.