Why Join Forensics?

How Does Forensics Benefit Students?

1. Forensics offers students an opportunity to develop research, critical thinking, organization, persuasion, and oral communication skills.

2. Forensics appeals to students with different goals and interests. It provides useful career preparation in law, education, politics, broadcasting, religion, public affairs, and business.

3. Forensics enables students to clarify their personal and social values through confrontation with the value judgments of others.

4. Students learn respect for dissenting opinions and acquire knowledge and skills crucial to effective participation in a democratic society.

5. Forensics provides students with an opportunity to develop social skills, including teamwork by competing responsibly and effectively in an intellectual environment.

(Resource: James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA)

What is the Origin of Forensics?

The word “forensics” is derived from Latin and is closely related to “forum”. A forum is an open exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of respect and responsibility. As practiced by the ancient Greeks, the forum was the actual seat of government, a place where the people got together to make the decisions by which they ruled. Later, in Roman times, the forum became a place where people could speak out in an attempt to persuade their representatives to one course of action or another. Today, forensics is the name given to the activity of competitive speech and debate. (Resource: PBS Documentary “Accidental Hero”)

How Does Forensics Impact College Admissions?

Extracurricular activities like forensics are playing an increasingly important role in the college admissions as well as the scholarship awarding processes. Why? Grade inflation is rampant in both public and private secondary schools and test preparation programs are distorting the reliability of national standardized tests like the SAT and ACT. According to the Wall Street Journal (Interactive Edition, April 16, 1999), college admissions directors are relying less on grade point averages and standardized test scores, and are relying more on success in academically related extracurricular activities such as speech and debate as well as drama. Colleges now acknowledge, based on years of experience, that students who demonstrate success in extracurricular activities which give them real-world skills like critical thinking, oral and written communication, and the ability to organize ideas and present them effectively perform better in college.

What does this mean?

The Wall Street Journal report did specifically highlight a “consistent trend”–one that forensic coaches have known for a long time–that dedicated participation in speech and debate has significantly increased the success rate of college applicants at all schools which track such data. State and national award winners have a 22% to 30% higher acceptance rate at top tier colleges and being captain of the debate team “improved an applicant’s chances by more than 60% compared with the rest of the pool,” according to the report. This is significantly better than other extracurricular activities that tend to recruit from the same pool of students as forensic teams such as school newspaper reporter (+3%), sports team captain (+5%), class president (+5%), and band (+3%). Even without winning major awards, participation in speech and debate develops valuable skills that colleges are seeking out and that is reflected in the above average acceptance rate (+4%). Colleges and universities today are looking for articulate thinkers and communicators who will become active citizens and leaders of tomorrow. (Resource: Minh A. Luong, Asst. Prof. of Ethics, Politics, & Economics at Yale)