Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament
2025 — Cambridge, MA/US
2025 Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament
Tournament Specific Live Docs
(includes venue locations, schedules, judging instructions, and other policies):
Congressional |
Lincoln-Douglas |
Policy Debate |
Public Forum |
Speech |
General Tournament Information
February 5, 2025
[Click Here to read this Letter in a Web Browser]
Greetings:
As we make the final preparations for the Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament, I write with some important information regarding deadlines and procedures. Finalized schedules and tournament-specific live docs will be posted at harvard.tabroom.com by the end of the week. More information (including maps and contact emails for specific tab rooms) will be added in the coming days.
First: Payments. All fees are due by Thursday February 13, 2025. Payments can be made by check or credit card. You can check to see if we have received your payment by logging into your account and looking at your fee statement.
To pay by check, send a check made payable to Harvard Debate to 490 Adams Mail Center, Cambridge, MA 02138. Please email a picture of the check and/or paperwork to hst@harvarddebate.org so we can make a note that the check is in transit and enable you to complete check-in on Friday.
If you are paying by credit card, please fill out this credit card request form.
If you need a W-9, it is available on the invite page and here: Harvard Debate W-9
Second: Entry Finalization. All fees will be frozen as of 11:59pm Eastern Time Monday, February 10. This means that you are responsible for any entries that are on your registration as of midnight even if you subsequently drop them. We do not charge a separate drop fee. After this point, any changes to your entry must be emailed to hst@harvarddebate.org.
Waitlists. We will continue to clear entries off of the waitlist up through Friday, Feb 14. We still hope to be able to admit all entries.
Third: Judge Finalization. If you have not entered or hired your judges, please do so ASAP. The tabroom system will let you know how many judges you need to request. We will add hires for any schools that have not entered enough judges to cover their obligation at the end of Tuesday, February 11. The judge fee must be paid by Thursday, Feb 13 before you will be able to register your school.
Judge qualifications: We would like to remind you that judges in all divisions must have graduated from high school or the equivalent. We do not allow high school students to judge, even for middle school or novice divisions.
Fourth: Check-In and Friday Confirmation Procedures. There will be no in-person registration. Tabroom.com will enable you to confirm the accuracy of your entries from 7 AM ET through 9 PM ET on Friday Feb 14. In order to complete final confirmation of your entries, you must have paid your fees or confirmed with us that payment is en route. When you log into tabroom.com between those times, you will see a red tab to “Confirm On-Site” from within the Harvard tournament registration page. Once you open it, please check your entries carefully one final time and click confirm. If you need to make any changes, please email hst@harvarddebate.org.
Fifth: Unlinked Students. A number of students still have unlinked tabroom accounts. In order to receive pairing announcements and access ballots, each student must have their own tabroom.com account linked to their email address. Instructions for linking students are available at this link.
Sixth: Snowy Weather. Please remind your students to bring appropriate winter clothes (including coats and shoes). There is currently a small amount of snow forecast for the weekend, but as always, that may change.
Please let us know if you have any other questions. We look forward to seeing you once again in Cambridge!
Thank you,
Tripp Rebrovick & the Harvard Debate Council
Invitation Letter
Dear Coaches,
We are delighted to invite you to attend the annual Harvard National Speech and Debate Tournament, which will be held in person on Presidents' Day Weekend, Saturday, Sunday, & Monday, February 15-17, 2025. The tentative tournament schedule is available at this link: Tentative Tournament Schedule.
We will again feature in-person competitions in 2025 for most events. We will not offer any hybrid divisions, but we will offer online divisions in: Middle School Congress, Beginner Public Forum, and Open Public Forum. We will continue to use Tabroom.com as the official registration and tournament management site for all events and divisions.
We have several announcements concerning this year’s tournament.
First, contact. We will continue to use an official tournament email address. Please direct all inquiries to hst@harvarddebate.org.
Second, hospitality. We will be providing breakfast to participants in Speech, Congress, PF, CX and LD. Coaches and judges will still be provided with breakfast and lunch in the lounges at CRLS and King/Putnam Schools. These hospitality costs are included in the entry fees.
Third, round robins. We are pleased to announce the return of the Policy Debate round robin, to be held prior to the tournament. We will also host an inaugural online World Schools Debate round robin. As has been the case for many years, the LD, PF, and Congress round robins will be hosted by the Debating Union, Harvard’s parliamentary debate team.
Fourth, new events. We are happy to announce that we are adding a Junior Varsity division in Congressional debate and a pilot Impromptu division in Speech (capped at 70 entries).
Lastly, registration. Once again we will not offer in-person registration on Friday before the tournament. All registration and final confirmation must be completed online. Participants will be required to confirm final entry details in lieu of traditional registration between 12pm ET and 9pm ET on Friday February 14, 2025. All fees must be received in Cambridge by noon ET on Thursday February 13, 2025.
We look forward to seeing you in Cambridge once again!
Sincerely yours,
Tripp Rebrovick, PhD
Coach of Debate, Harvard College
Director, The Harvard Debate Council
Official Tournament Email: hst@harvarddebate.org