The Best Delegate team has visited over twenty conferences so far this year and we got to compare and contrast – and blog about – each one. During our travels, we get asked by curious high school students: What are the most prestigious conferences? And from those results, which teams are the best in America?
We decided to answer the question of best high school teams and released our Best High School Model UN Teams standings (based on results as of March 21, 2011) for schools in the top 16-25 on March 23rd. Which schools made the list? Find out here!
You can learn more below if you’re curious as to why we decided to publish standings or want to find out about our methodology including which conferences we used to calculate the standings.
Purpose of Standings
Our goal for visiting conferences around the country is to write about Model UN, promote the activity, and connect its participants, but in the process we did collect a lot of awards data and first-hand observations that can help us address the question that students ask us: what are the best high school teams in America?
Answering these questions has many benefits. Information is decentralized in Model UN and participants are understandably curious about other conferences and teams. Certain colleges seem to value Model UN more than others but their admissions officers may not have the information to help them make an assessment on Model UN success. And knowing the top teams helps all schools – the top schools can publicize their success, and the other teams can identify the top teams and observe what makes them good.
It is for all the reasons above that we decided to put together the list of best high school Model UN teams. Despite our name, we do not believe awards are the ultimate purpose of Model UN — awards are merely indicators of success in a learning process that will hopefully help students find their passion, become a leader of tomorrow, and change the world. We mention this in our About page and in our How to Win Awards guide. Therefore, our intent for the list is not to foster competition but rather to provide information worthy of discussion and debate.
Methodology
How did we come up with our list of the best high school Model UN teams? We explain our methodology here.
