Details

Registration

The registration deadline is Friday, October 10th, 2025. When registering, all entries will initially be waitlisted. Once payment is received, your registration will be guaranteed, and your entries will be removed from the waitlist. We understand that many schools are having trouble processing payments this fall, and we will be flexible.

We may need to close registration before October 10th due to space constraints; however, we will continue to accept registrations after that date if space allows. Paymentby check or purchase order must be received by the deadline. As of 8 PM CST on Friday, October 10th, fees will be assessed and refunds will no longer be available.

To provide the best tournament possible, communicate all changes promptly as they occur up until the day of the tournament. You may continue making changes after the website closes by emailing minneappledebate@gmail.com. On tournament day, all registration changes must be called directly into the tab room before arriving at the tournament site.

Any outstanding balances for the tournament must be paid at the registration desk before any entries from your school are allowed to compete.

• Schools may enter up to TEN Varsity LD debaters, TEN Varsity PF teams, and TWELVE CD entries. Additional entries may be added to the additional entry waitlist. The tournament will be capped at 180 total entries in both Varsity PF and Varsity LD.

• There are NO entry limits in JV, Novice LD, and Novice Public Forum.

• Entry fees are inclusive of Friday dinner, Saturday lunch & dinner, and Sunday lunch for debaters.

• The Varsity Public Forum fee is $150 per team. •

• The Varsity LD registration fee is $130.

• The Congressional Debate entry fee is $100.

• The Novice Public Forum fee is $50 per team.

• The Novice LD fee is $40.

• The JV LD entry fee is $40.

Payment

If you would like to pay by card, please use THIS LINK. Enter the amount you owe (refer to your tabroom invoice) to complete payment.

Please make checks payable to Apple Valley Speech & Debate Alumni Foundation

Click here for a copy of our W9

Checks can be mailed to:

MinneApple Debate
400 S 4th St Ste 410 PMB 51858
Minneapolis, MN 55415-1419

Independent Entries

The MinneApple will not admit any student without their school administration's approval, knowledge, and consent. During the MinneApple, students must be under the care of a school employee or an individual with written authorization from the school's administration to make decisions on behalf of their students.

Unless a school employee registers a team, explicit written permission authorizing the registration must be sent to minneappledebate@gmail.com on school letterhead. Only adults approved by the school's administration may register entries. Students may not register themselves.

The tournament doesn't allow "hybrid entries." Students in partnered events must attend the same school.

Violations of these policies will result in the cancellation of registration or disqualification from the competition without a refund.

Harassment and Discrimination Policy

This tournament upholds our school district's harassment and discrimination policy. Instances of harassment/discrimination should be reported to the tabroom or tournament ombudsperson as soon as possible. Reports of harassment/discrimination will be handled per ISD 196 policy and adjudicated by Tournament Equity Officers or an Apple Valley High School Administrator.

This year our Equity officers are:

Michelle Keohane
Tzitel Voss

Hotel Block and Fee

We have arranged a hotel block at the Fairfield Inn & Suites St. Paul Eagan. The rate is $108 for singles or doubles. The rate includes breakfast and parking. When the block is available to book, we will provide a reservation link here.

We have worked hard to secure the best rate possible for the tournament block. To ensure this is possible in the future, we kindly request that teams utilize the block.To this end, a $200 fee applies if schools opt not to stay in the host hotel. Please request the deletion of the hotel fee if you are staying at the Fairfield Inn ASAP by emailingminneappledebate@gmail.com. We will automatically remove this fee for local teams. If you are local or staying in the hotel, please do not include this fee in your payments.

Judging

In Varsity divisions, schools may not hire out their entire judging commitment. A minimum of one judge must represent each school. We believe this will further enhance the diversity and quality of our Varsity judge pools.

In Varsity LD, we require that teams provide qualified judges. The tournament staff will make the final determination as to whether a judge is qualified. The expectation is that judges should be preferred by enough of the pool to be eligible to fulfill their judging obligation if a team does not provide a judge qualified to judge varsity LD, the tournament staff reserves the right to deny MJP to the team or remove entries entirely from the tournament.

Moreover, if a judge is conflicted from judging more than 20% of the pool, they may only cover up to two rounds of a school's obligation.

Also, in Varsity divisions, please help us have the best pool of judges possible by making judges available who reflect the quality of the competition. First-year outs can fulfill a school's commitment, but we strongly encourage the head coach to serve as a critic and be represented in the judge pool.

Additionally, unless an exception is granted in advance, schools may not hire judges unless all of their on-site coaches are entered into the judging pool.

Please remember that a school's judges are obligated at least through the first full elimination debate or one round past the elimination of its last team/debater after that. To ensure the best judging pool possible and flexibility for pairings, we cannot guarantee requests for partial judging commitments. Given that the MinneApple has only single flights in each preliminary round, this commitment is comparable to a half-time commitment at a tournament with flighted rounds.

Judge's obligations cannot be split across divisions. For example, if you have two novice LD debaters, you will need one judge at Valley Middle School. However, if you have only one Novice LD debater and one Varsity LD debater, you would need one judge at each building for a total of two judges.

If judging obligations are not met, the tournament reserves the right to remove a school's entries to balance the student-judge ratio. This includes cases where judges miss the first round on Friday or Saturday. Debaters may be reentered into the schedule, but with losses for the missed rounds.

LD: We do not flight rounds. Therefore, each school must provide four rounds of judging per debater

PF: We do not flight rounds. Each school must provide four rounds of judging per team.

Congressional Debate: Each school must provide one qualified judge for every five entries or portion thereof.

Hired Judges

YOU MUST SPECIFICALLY REQUEST A HIRED JUDGE BY OCTOBER 10TH. LEAVING THE JUDGING COMMITMENT BLANK DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE HIRED A JUDGE. Requests are NOT guaranteed until confirmed. We have a limited number of hired judges available and will try to honor requests to the best of our ability. We will prioritize offering some hired judging to a larger number of schools over providing many hired judges to a smaller number of schools. The fee for a judge is $100 per uncovered round in VLD and VPF, $75 per uncovered round in NLD, JVLD, NPF, & WS, and $100 per uncovered entry in CD. If you are interested in being a hired judge, please fill out THIS FORM.

MJP

In Varsity LD, the MinneApple will allow teams to rate judges and strike a small portion of the field. To accomplish this, we require all teams to submit judge names by 8 PM CST on October 27th. If a judge's name is changed or removed from the pool after this date, the tournament will assess a $50 fee. This fee is charged to prevent teams from adversely affecting all other team's preferences. This fee will be assessed at registration and is due before teams are permitted to compete. All judges in the Varsity LD division must submit a judging philosophy on tabroom by 8 PM CST on October 27th. Teams whose judges have not submitted a paradigm will not be permitted to submit a preference sheet without exception. Judge Preferences will open on October 29th.

Any teams who have not fulfilled their judging obligation or have judges without paradigms listed online before the deadline will not be permitted to rate judges.

Any judge not listed on the preference sheet will become a free strike. Teams wishing to exercise their free strikes must notify the tab room before the next round's pairing to ensure their strikes are honored.

In Varsity PF, we will offer limited judge strikes.

Judge Conflict Policy

The tournament will use the TOC rules when evaluating judge conflicts. If a judge and/or competitor reports a conflict after a pairing is distributed, resulting in a change to the pairing, the associated school will be assessed a $300 fine and risks losing judge preferences/strikes for the remainder of the tournament.

JV/Novice Eligibility

At the MinneApple, a novice is a student in their first year of debate competition, regardless of the event.

A JVer is a student in their second year of competition in a high-school format, regardless of the event. To clarify, a year of competition in any event offered to high school students (LD, PF, Policy, etc.) counts towards eligibility, even if the student was entered in a middle school division.

Please note that the novice definition is more restrictive. Essentially, any previous season of experience in any debate format means the student is not eligible to compete in our novice division. We feel that it's essential that the novice division is reserved for true beginners at the MinneApple.

We're aware that norms vary in different parts of the country, and the type of competition available to younger students can be quite different. If you believe this rule doesn't quite fit your circumstances, don't hesitate to get in touch with us directly, and we'll make a determination.

Time Limits and Resolutions

In LD, we will use the NSDA 6-3-7-3-4-6-3 time limits with 4 minutes of preparation time. Each division of LD will debate the NSDA November/December resolution.

In PF, we will use NSDA rules and time limits. Each division of PF will debate the NSDA November resolution.

LD/PF Pairing Protocols

Rounds one and two in all divisions will be randomly paired. Rounds three through six will be paired high-low within brackets. Brackets will not be broken in elimination rounds. Varsity speaker awards are based on speaker points in preliminary rounds.

NSDA Rules

The MinneApple will use NSDA rules for all events, but the enforcement of all rules is left to judges in the round. If NSDA pilot rules are available for an event, they will be in effect at the tournament.

Decision Times

LD Decision Times: We will again be using decision times in LD this year. Decision time means there will be a deadline by which the judge must decide each debate. Each round's decision deadline is based on the Tabroom pairing start time. If the judge does not enter a decision by the decision time, it is within the Tabroom's power to assign the winner of that debate randomly. We intend to enforce this, but we hope we don't have to.

For prelims, we will enforce a 75-minute decision time. For elims, it will be 80 minutes.

Congress Information

Legislation: Schools must use CongressionalDebate.org legislation templates and submit -- via this Tabroom registration site -- up to 4 per school. Only Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Rich Text Format (RTF) file types will be accepted - no PDFs. Legislation may be rejected if it does not meet standards enumerated for relevant legislation within the jurisdiction of the United States Congress. If there are many submissions from schools, we will select the best from among each school's proposals for the overall tournament docket. If there is not enough legislation, items from recent NSDA dockets will be added. See below for deadlines and posting dates.

Rules/Procedures: The MinneApple uses NSDA rules, including pilot rules.

Advancement and Finals: Using NSDA tabulation protocols, about one-third of the preliminary session field advances to semifinal chambers of 9-12 students and a final session chamber of 10-14 students. Direct questioning will be used for the semifinal and final rounds.

Awards/TOC Bid Level: The top six students receive MinneApple apple awards, and non-placing final session participants will receive an award. The top PO from each preliminary chamber and the final session PO will receive a gavel. All final-round contestants, plus the next highest-ranked student in each semifinal chamber, earn one bid/leg to the University of Kentucky Tournament of Champions.

Student Leadership Award: While student vote will not determine the tournament's outcome, a special award modeled after the NSDA National Tournament leadership award will be conferred upon one final round debater who earns preferential ranking by their peers.

Judges: One judge for every five Congressional debaters. This judging obligation may not be shared with other divisions. Since the MinneApple offers small chambers to allow students more meaningful opportunities to debate, more judges will be needed. Please note any experience as a parliamentarian in the notes area when registering judges.

Chaos Control Fees

Because the judge pool is integral to the efficiency and quality of the tournament, a 'chaos control' fee of $100.00 will be assessed per missed round per judge and must be paid by the end of the tournament. Schools must have their judging obligations filled for all rounds, including rounds one and two on Friday, or pay for hired judges to fulfill those round requirements.

Important Dates

October 10th

• Registration Due (capacity may be full before this date)
• Final Fees are Assessed at 8 PM CST. No refunds are available after this date
• Check Payment/Purchase Order Due
• Golden Apple Award Nominations Due
• Distinguished Alumnus Award Nominations Due
• Hired judge requests are due by 8 PM CST
• Additional entry waitlist notified
• Congress Legislation Due

October 16th

• Congressional Debate Legislation Released

October 27th

• Final Judge and competitor Names Entered by 8 PM CST
• Varsity LD Judge Paradigms submitted on tabroom

October 29th

• Judge preferencing is available

After October 27th

• ANY changes to your entries or judges should be entered on the website until it is closed. Then all changes should be emailed to minneappledebate@gmail.com.