2024 Harvard Council International

Over the weekend, six teams from VDA competed across three divisions in the Harvard Debate Council International Tournament. This tournament was unique and only hosted non-US teams- ranging from Vietnam, to India, to China- giving VDA an opportunity to really shine against our international opponents! We are so excited to share our results!

Starting with speaker awards, a MASSIVE congratulations to Finn Ye for receiving 1st place speaker in the Open Division! They were the top speaker out of 50 competitors and held their lead by a half a point over the 2nd speaker, which is VERY substantial for speaker points! Fantastic work, Finn!

For the competition proper, VDA did not disappoint! Congratulations to the team of Marcus Zhang and Jadon Yao for advancing to the Quarterfinals in the Open Division and landing in the top 8 teams!

We had a unique situation happen at this tournament- two teams from VDA advanced to the finals in the Open Division! Congratulations to the teams of Finn Ye and Joshua Zhou AND Wayne Liang and Nikki Zheng! Both teams fought their way to the finals with Finn Ye and Joshua Zhou officially taking 1st due to their higher preliminary bracket seeding. Both teams should be extremely proud of themselves and we are so excited to share this victory with them!

These students have worked tirelessly on the Southern Border topic and we are overjoyed to see our hard work materialize into great success. We could not be more proud!