Public Forum Individual Speaker Rankings

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