HNMUN

Yale University defended their Best Large Delegation award at HNMUN 2012

The Harvard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) is the largest and most competitive university-level Model UN conference in the world and serves as the collegiate championship for many of the teams in attendance. And the delegation awards went to…

  • Best Large Delegation: Yale University
  • Outstanding Large Delegation: University of Chicago
  • Best Small Delegation: George Washington University
  • Best International Delegation: Universidad Simon Bolivar

Here’s a video from Closing Ceremonies:

HNMUN did an excellent job with their Press Corps and you can find all their blog articles and photos here. We also have some liveblog photos, Closing Ceremonies video, and our awards analysis below.

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Best Delegate will be hitting the road again this year! We’ll be traveling around the country to teach a series of student workshops and free teacher workshops.

And of course, we’ll also be visiting conferences to liveblog again and interview you guys about all the fun you’re having! We had an amazing time meeting everyone last year and we hope to see more of you on the road. Read below to see which conferences we plan to visit this year!

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Columbia CMUNCE and its Peter Pan committee were among our favorite conferences and committees to liveblog last year

Best Delegate is ready for the new season to start! We’ll be launching our tour schedule on Monday — check back to see which conferences we’ll be liveblogging this year!

In the meantime, here’s a recap from our tour last year. These were just personal favorite moments from our weekends on the road and we thought we’d share them for fun. We picked out our favorite conferences to liveblog, favorite committees, favorite opening ceremonies, favorite closing ceremonies, and favorite delegate to liveblog for both the high school and college circuits. Find out which ones made the lists below!

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Only a few schools, such as FIU, attend conferences in both the World and National Divisions

The Best Delegate team has been visiting different Model UN conferences around the country all year and we’ve noticed that two different groups of schools attend college Model UN conferences.

One group mostly attends the conferences hosted by U.Penn, Georgetown, Yale, U.Chicago, and Berkeley, and this group views the Harvard National MUN Conference (HNMUN) as their “super bowl.” We call this group of schools and the conferences they attend the “World Division” circuit.

The other group mostly attends independently-organized conferences such as Model UN of the Far West and American Model UN, and they view the National MUN Conference (NMUN) as their big conference of the year. We call this the “National Division” circuit.

The two circuits are not mutually exclusive. Schools such as Florida International University and Universidad Catolica Andres Bello in Venezuela attend both HNMUN and NMUN. Schools are free to register for conferences of either circuit (although the bigger conferences have waiting lists). Nonetheless, college Model UN in the United States has evolved into these two separate circuits.

What’s the difference between the two circuits? More importantly, is there something that they can learn from one another?

To answer these questions, I compared the Top 25 North American schools in the World Division and the 23 US-based schools that received Outstanding Delegation at NMUN. Combined with my observations from live blogging the World Division conferences and NMUN, I noticed 5 key differences.

Click “Learn More” below to find out what the 5 key differences are!

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BREAKING NEWS: Harvard Launches New College Model UN Conference in Latin America!

by Ryan April 12, 2011 5 comments

On the afternoon of Sunday, April 10th, the Board of Directors of the Harvard International Relations Council approved the establishment of Harvard National Model United Nations Latin America (HNMUN-LA), HNMUN’s first-ever venture into the field of conferences abroad. The first session of HNMUN-LA will take place 12-15 January 2012 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. After working [...]

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The Best College Model UN Teams: Overview

by KFC March 23, 2011 20 comments

The Best Delegate team has visited many college conferences this year and we got to compare and contrast – and blog about – each one. During our travels, we often hear debate about rankings from competitive delegates representing rival teams. So which is the best college Model UN team in the world? We decided to [...]

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The Best College Model UN Teams: Divisions and Methodology

by KFC March 23, 2011 18 comments

The college circuit had to be divided into two divisions because we noticed two different circuits of conferences with very little overlap in participating colleges. We explain below the two divisions as well as our methodology behind the standings.

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HNMUN 2011: America’s Best Model UN Team

by Ryan February 21, 2011 22 comments
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Yale University won Best Large Delegation at HNMUN 2011! Outstanding Large Delegation went to the University of Chicago, with West Point winning Best Small Delegation and Universidad Metropolitana of Venezuela winning Best International Delegation.

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HNMUN 2011: Secretary-General & Teach for America Interviews

by Ryan February 20, 2011 1 comment

I interviewed HNMUN 2011 Secretary-General Ricky Hanzich about the best part of his job and what Model UN means to him. I’ve known Ricky since high school and both of us were Secretaries-General of our high school’s and college’s conferences. I was proud to visit Ricky’s conference and interview him after so many years of [...]

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HNMUN 2011: Dine with the Dutch, Dance with the Venezuelans

by Ryan February 19, 2011 0 comments

This year’s Harvard National Model United Nations (HNMUN) features over 2900 delegates from 40 countries. Below, I interview delegates who came all the way from the Netherlands and Kenya in order to learn from and meet people from around the world: Although I don’t have any video of dancing with the Venezuelans (the delegate dance [...]

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