Each year, PFers around the country argue about who is truly the best speaker in the country. To contribute to this conversation, we have created an objective metric to rank individual debaters.
The way it works is simple. At an octas bid tournament, the top speaker earns 20 points and each following speaker earns 2 points less than the previous debater. At a quarters bid, the same rules apply, but with the top speaker earning 10 points. Under this system, every debater who is a top 10 speaker at an octas bid tournament or a top 5 speaker at a quarters bid tournament will earn points. The only other relevant rule is that debaters must earn points at two different tournaments in order to be ranked. This way, speakers must prove themselves multiple times at the highest level in order to be included.
These rankings are by no means perfect, but we hope it can contribute to ongoing speculation.
Tournaments included:
- Wake Forest
- Grapevine
- Yale
- Harker
- Bronx
- Apple Valley
- Cypress Bay
- Glenbrooks
- Princeton
- Alta
- La Costa Canyon
- Blake
- Arizona State
- Lexington
- Columbia
- Emory
- Golden Desert
- UPenn
- Stanford
- Harvard
- Millard North
- Berkeley
Rank Debater School Points Points Earned At
1 Ella Fanger Oakwood 50 Yale, Stanford, Harvard
2 Ben Koch Bronx Science 46 Yale, Princeton, Emory
T3 Samuel Wood Ardrey Kell 42 Wake Forest, Yale, Glenbrooks
T3 James Chen Millburn 42 Bronx, Glenbrooks, Princeton, Harvard
5 Daniel Ju Stuyvesant 36 Princeton, Blake, Emory
T6 Ellie Grossman Blake 34 Grapevine, Bronx, Glenbrooks, Emory, UPenn
T6 Talia Khelghati Presentation 34 Glenbrooks, Alta, Berkeley
8 Honor McCarthy Horace Mann 32 Bronx, Blake, Lexington
9 John Nahas La Salle 28 La Costa Canyon, Arizona State, Berkeley
10 Ammar Lone Hawken 26 Blake, Emory
T11 Pranav Baskar Princeton 24 Wake Forest, Bronx
T11 Anindu Rentala Anderson 24 Grapevine, Glenbrook
T11 Peter Zhu Davis 24 Arizona State, Stanford,
T14 Elisa Lopez Blake 22 Bronx, Apple Valley
T14 David Maluf Hunter College 22 Bronx, UPenn
T14 Kevin Hautigan Ft. Lauderdale 22 Cypress Bay, Harvard
T17 Ozan Erungor Hawken 20 Blake, Emory
T17 Siddarth Tripathi Horace Mann 20 Blake, Lexington
T17 Jay Garg Newton South 20 Wake Fores, Harvard
T17 Sarah Branse University School 20 Cypress Bay, Harvard
T21 Marina Leventis Colleyville Heritage 18 Glenbrooks, Blake
T21 Raj Purohit Eagan 18 Apple Valley, Blake
T23 Karina Aguilar Newton South 14 Bronx, Lexington
T23 David Wornow College Prep 14 Harker, Golden Desert
T23 Sam Ripley Oakwood 14 Yale, Stanford
26 Conrad Palor Green Valley 12 Alta, Arizona State
27 Asher Spector Horace Mann 10 Lexington, UPenn
T28 Daniel Oestericher Bronx Science 6 Princeton, Lexington
T28 Miranda Nutt Colleyville Heritage 6 Apple Valley, Glenbrooks
