U.Chicago won two Best Large Delegation awards
The first month of the college Model UN season is over! It was a busy one with conferences every weekend — CMUNNY, SCSY, BarMUN, and NCSC — in the World Division and with NMUN DC in the International Division. We’ll release our first set of this season’s college MUN rankings in December, but in the meantime here is the college rankings review with the award winners and story-lines from October!
World Division
The World Division refers to the circuit of student-led teams that primarily attend university-hosted conferences such as HNMUN and UPMUNC. This circuit is generally described as competitive with few delegation awards and therefore prefers a system of college rankings to recognize other award-winning teams. A detailed rankings methodology will be released in December right before the rankings come out.
NCSC, SCSY, CMUNNY, BarMUN
The World Division front-loaded its season with conferences every weekend in October. U.Chicago started its defense of its #1 ranking with a Best Large Delegation at CMUNNY. U.Penn then dominated at SCSY and BarMUN to set up a showdown at the most competitive conference of the month at NCSC. The competition at NCSC was tightly-contested and U.Chicago won Best Large Delegation and U.Penn took Outstanding Large Delegation. There were four major story-lines from October:
1. U.Chicago, U.Penn, and Georgetown are the front-runners. These three teams captured multiple large delegation awards this month and that should put them near the top of any ranking through November until we get to UPMUNC in December.
2. A rise in upstart teams will disrupt the Top 25. Several teams have told us that their goal is to break into the Top 25 and results from October suggest that some of these teams are already ahead of schedule. New names winning delegation awards such as UMass Amherst, Colgate, Brown, and Middlebury show that there could be major changes in this year’s Top 25 (provided that they keep winning at the largest conferences).
3. Yale and Florida International performed well in “cross-training.” Yale and Florida International are two teams that thrive in large, United Nations-heavy conferences but both upgraded their schedules to include crisis conferences for the first time. Given their strong performances at NCSC, these two teams might be done with “cross-training” for crisis already and can now go head-to-head with the best in both UN and crisis conferences.
4. The front-loaded schedule created several road warriors. U.Penn should get an honorary road warrior award for attending all four conferences this month. Schools that attended/hosted three conferences include: Georgetown, Harvard, William & Mary, McGill, Rutgers, and Columbia. That’s a lot of traveling. That’s also a huge advantage to East Coast-based teams since travel is much easier up and down the Eastern seaboard.
The full list of delegation awards plus other notable teams are:
CMUNNY
- Best Large: University of Chicago
- Outstanding Large: Georgetown University
- Best Small: George Washington University
- Outstanding Small: University of Massachusetts – Amherst
Harvard came in a close 3rd in terms of weighted number of awards won and NYU continued its meteoric rise by finishing 4th. William & Mary, U.Penn, Miami, and Michigan State also put in strong performances.
SCSY
- Best Large: University of Pennsylvania
- Outstanding Large: Georgetown University
- Best Small: Columbia University
- Outstanding Small: Colgate University
West Point came in a very close 3rd in terms of weighted number of awards won and Harvard placed a clear 4th. William & Mary, Vanderbilt, and SUNY Geneseo also did well at SCSY.
BarMUN
- Best Large: University of Pennsylvania
- Outstanding Large: Brown University
- Best Small: University of Texas at Austin
- Outstanding Small: Middlebury College
Boston College also had a strong showing at BarMUN.
NCSC
- Best Large: University of Chicago
- Outstanding Large: University of Pennsylvania
- Best Small: Yale University
- Outstanding Small: U.S. Military Academy at West Point
The four delegation award winners were very close with each other, and Rutgers and Florida International were not far behind them either. Harvard, Columbia, Emory, McGill, NYU, and Florida State also captured multiple awards at NCSC.
November Conferences
Several conferences will take place in November including UC Santa Barbara SBIMUN, Duke DISCon, and Cornell CIAC before we get to the biggest conference of the Fall in December: U.Penn UPMUNC. SBIMUN has grown rapidly and should give West Coast teams an early-season boost that they previously did not have.
International Division
The International Division refers to the circuit of advisor-led teams that primarily attend organization-hosted conferences such as NMUN. This circuit is generally described as focused on the educational experience of Model UN and prefers tiering many schools into awards categories over ranking schools into specific places.
NMUN DC
Although several training conferences such as Florida FMUN and Orange County OCMUN took place, the big event of the month was NMUN DC with over 500 delegates in attendance for the three-day conference. NMUN DC awards delegations by country rather than by school. The full awards list for NMUN DC is here.
Outstanding Delegations went to:
- Rock Valley College
- Victor Valley College
- California State University, Northridge
- University of North Florida
It is also worth noting that the following schools won multiple delegation awards:
- Pace University
- West Virginia University
- Texas Christian University
- Irvine Valley College
November Conferences
Regional action continues in November with the Southern Regional SRMUN in Atlanta, American AMUN in Chicago, and Northwest MUN in Seattle.
**
If anyone has information on the Carolina’s Conference hosted by UNC Charlotte, please email me at kfc@bestdelegate.com so we can recognize awards winners from that conference. Thanks!
**
Note: The mission of Best Delegate is to promote Model UN. Our intent in any of the rankings-related articles is to recognize the successes of teams and hope that these teams can use the publicity to further improve. Awards should not be the end goal but rather a by-product of the educational experience of Model UN.
