NSDA National Championship

District Congress is held earlier than the qualifying tournament for Speech and Debate.

Students enter in this tournament in either the Senate (max 2 entries from AA) or the House (max 7 entries from AA) for the chance to qualify for Nationals.

Competing at the District Congress tournament does not preclude you from entering or qualifying in a different event at the National Qualifier in March. Students who double enter within the speech and debate district tournament are still eligible to compete in District Congress. Triple entry is not permitted unless one of the events is Congressional Debate.

However, no student may double-enter at the National Tournament itself. Therefore a Single Entry Letter of Intent (SELI) must be filed on Tabroom for each student competing in multiple events indicating the event in which the student would compete at National Tournament, should they qualify more than one. In this instance, the competitor will vacate their non-preferred event and allow the spot to be moved to the next highest qualifier or alternate.

Students have the chance to qualify in a main Speech or Debate event at the District National Qualifying tournament held in March. Main events include CX, PF, LD for Debate and DI, HI, DUO, INFO, OO, POI, and Extemp for Speech.

Students may double-enter at Nat Quals, (in addition to Congress) but no student may double-enter at the National Tournament. Therefore, a Single Entry Letter of Intent (SELI) must be filed on Tabroom for each student competing in multiple events indicating the event in which the student would compete at National Tournament, should they qualify more than one. In this instance, the competitor will vacate their non-preferred event and allow the spot to be moved to the next highest qualifier or alternate.

It is the assumption that students who register for the District National Qualifier intend to compete at Nationals if they do indeed qualify. Students should proactively plan ahead regarding the National Tournament and anticipate conflicts accordingly. If students at first plan to compete at Nationals but later learn they cannot, we request notice as soon as possible, but no later than June 1st to allow the District Committee to notify alternates.

In addition to our competitors in Speech, Debate, and Congress, all NSDA districts are allowed to qualify up to two teams of three to five students for the USA World Schools Debate Invitational hosted at the National Championship in June.
Learn more about World Schools Debate at www.speechanddebate.org/introduction-to-world-schools-debate/

Any student who competed at districts would be eligible for participation on the World Schools District Team. Collaboration is of the utmost importance for World Schools competitors, as you may wind up competing on a team with students from other schools to represent NM as a whole.

To earn a spot on one of the District World Schools Debate teams, students submit an application to be reviewed by the District Committee and its designees.

Students who compete in a single event at Nat Quals but who also apply for consideration on the World Schools team must also file a Single Entry Letter of Intent in Tabroom indicating the event in which the student would compete at National Tournament. In this instance, the competitor will vacate their non-preferred event and allow the spot to be moved to the next highest qualifier or alternate.

If a student is unable to attend the District Qualifying tournaments in either Congress or Speech/Debate, students can also earn a spot to Nationals by competing in NSDA’s Last Chance Qualifier. This tournament is entirely online and held April 25-27, 2024. Learn more by visting www.speechanddebate.org/nsdaqualifier/

-Students do not need to have attended the district tournament to enter the tournament
-Students may not be registered for the NSDA Last-Chance Qualifier if they qualified in any event at their district tournament.
-However, students may enter if they have earned a spot on their district’s World Schools team as long as they are willing to vacate their WSD spot in case of qualification

If you are listed as an alternate at the District National Qualifying tournament and one of the qualifier spots ahead of you has to vacate their slot, we will be notified with the option to have you become the new qualifier in your event. We usually know this by June 1st at the very latest. This doesn’t happen often, but it is one way to attend Nationals that you should prepare for and be aware of.

The National Tournament features competition in all of the Main Association events, but it also offers competition in Supplemental Events.

Competitors in main events who do not advance to elimination round competition on Wednesday are eligible to re-register for supplemental events on Tuesday.

However, we are also able to bring up to two non-qualifiers to compete solely in supplemental events. This offers competitors the chance to compete for a National title while also observing many other events, and is a wonderful way to experience the benefits of Nationals without formally qualifying in a main event.

Supplemental events include:
-Extemporaneous Debate
-Impromptu
-Expository
-Commentary
-Original Word Spoken Poetry
-Poetry
-Prose
-Pro Con Challenge
-Storytelling

Learn more about these events at https://www.speechanddebate.org/competition-events/ and by reading each event’s description in NSDA’s Competition Events Guide.