This past year was a great success for graduates of Kudos’ Middle School Congress program. Every graduate from the middle school program competing in high school congress either earned a bid to the Tournament of Champions, or qualified to State Championships.

Freshman Julianna Cui qualified to her state tournament (Virginia High School League), and made the final at her National Catholic Forensic’s League, National Qualifier. Freshman Anne Liu and Tim Cai both qualified to the California High School Speech Association’s (CHSAA) State Championships out of Area 4’s Orange County Speech League with Tim attending as a presiding officer, and Anne as a senator. Anne was joined by Sophomore Fiona Zhou who qualified out of Area 3’s Southern California Debate League. She and freshman Evelyn Lam qualified to the National Speech and Debate Association’s National Championships out of the East Los Angeles NSDA District with Evelyn in the House and Fiona in the Senate. Both girls made outrounds at Nationals with Evelyn making Quarter Finals and Fiona making semifinals.

This is the 2nd year in a row that a Kudos freshman broke at NSDA, with Evelyn joining Fiona who also broke her first year in high school at NSDA. Fiona didn’t stop there, as she was invited to Harvard’s prestigious round robin which is an invite only tournament for the best in the nation. Further, after being second in the NATION for TOC bids, she semi’d at TOC for the second year in a row. Her and fellow sophomore Claire Wen qualified for the TOC again after doing so the year prior. Freshman Serena Guo also qualified for the 2nd straight year, but was not allowed to attend TOC last year since she was only an 8th grader. Evelyn was our final TOC qualifier, with Julianna + sophomores Zach Chang and Lindsey Jiang each earning a bid this year. This was particularly notable for Lindsey and Zach who both only competed second semester after taking a first semester hiatus.

Kudos students earned a total of 18 TOC bids, which was twice as many as the year before. Things are looking up for Kudos high school congress as they head into their third year!

Tim, Zach, Juliana, Serena, Lindsey, Evelyn, Anne 2022 23 Updates

Claire and Fiona updated 2022-23 results

Evelyn Lam and Claire Wen at TOC

Anne, Claire Evelyn at CSULB