On 2/8-2/10, Kudos sent 26 students to one of the largest tournaments held in the country at Stanford and had an overall very positive experience.

Kudos Irvine took two PF teams and Temple City three. Sarah Chen and Annie Jiang finished prelims as the 11th overall team at the tournament out of 186 teams total. This gave them a bye in the first elimination round.

Sarah and Annie advanced to the double-octafinal round which makes them one of the top 32 teams at the tournament. Sarah finished as the tournament’s 20th overall speaker, and Annie finished as the tournament’s 41st overall speaker. Certainly, an outstanding job by Sarah and Annie since this is a high school tournament.

Ava Ye and Joy Sun, who triumphed in multiple local tournaments, won three rounds and finished in the top half of teams at 86th overall. They tested a new strategy which did not carry them to elimination rounds. New debaters Kathrine Kligys and Kaitlyn Huang proved overwhelming courage in winning three rounds, while Madeline Ang and Shirlyn Huang came out with two wins. Seventh graders Stephanie Jing and Jessica Xue ended up with only one win, but ranked in the middle on Speakers list of 372 total competitors, showing potential!

On the LD side, three Kudos members participated in this fiercely competed event among 140 debaters. In her first major tournament after transitioned to LD debate, Julianne Wu won three tough rounds. Daniel Wu as well as Nathan Chen, who is among the youngest at 6th grade, all competed with great courage and high spirits!

Congress team competed against some of the best and brightest in the country.
Six of our ten made semifinals at one of the toughest tournaments in the United States.

Congrats to all who broke but specifically Zachary Chang for his first ever break, and Anne Chen for also winning best Presiding Officer.

We believe that having our talented middle schoolers go against high schoolers was an excellent experience and a chance to show off their skills. Our coaches were very impressed by the maturity that was shown by our Stanford students.

Traveling is not an easy feat, especially when it comes to travelling with 26 students and family member, but our Kudos kids did a great job at being responsible and being mature team players.

We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the parents that came up with us to Stanford and helped keep an eye on the kids, as well as a thank you to the students that were excellent travelers and great competitors.

Speech team:
Evelyn Tsoi Quarter finalist in Impromptu against high schoolers.
AUSTIN Hong 4th place in International Extemp against high schoolers.
Onwards to the next tournament in April! Keep up the great work!

Melinda Guo (Far left) is Kudos Alumni of 2011~2013. She is now a Sophomore at Stanford University. She was a fierce competitor in local speech tournament scene. Melinda not only won numerous trophies in Southern California, she also took home 4th place in Humorous Interpretation and 6th place in Original Oratory in NSDA (National Speech and Debate Association) back in 2013. She visited Kudos speech team members at Stanford tournament, her presence cheered them up and it was such a joy to see Melinda again since graduated from Kudos!