The Brewer Foundation and New York University are proud to announce the “Top 64” teams for the 19th annual International Public Policy Forum (IPPF) – the first and only contest that gives high school students around the world the opportunity to engage in written and oral debates on issues of public policy.
 

This year’s qualifying round involved submissions from more than 150 teams, representing schools in 19 countries and 28 U.S. states. The IPPF would like to thank all of its student competitors for taking part in the contest. The essays were exceptionally well-written and well-researched.  
 

Below, you will find a list of advancing teams in alphabetical order. Given that some schools entered more than one essay, the names of the students on the advancing teams are included below. You can also click here to see a PDF of the IPPF bracket, which includes the pairings for the competition and notes the side (affirmative or negative) assigned to each team. Advancing teams will receive an e-mail with additional information.

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2019-20 Top 64
 

A&M Consolidated High School, College Station, Texas

Students: Lars Deutz, Allen Zhang, Celine Choi

 

Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, West Palm Beach, Florida

Students: Melodie Barrau, Nirmit Chandan, Katherine Oung, Guyberson Pierre, Miles Wang

 

Amity Regional High School, Woodbridge, Connecticut

Students: Kevin Lu, Margaret Luo, Arnav Paliwal, Peter Scully, Jack Tajmajer, Zhengyang Wang, Weiss Yuan, Wendy Zhang

 

Ascend International School, Mumbai, India

Students: Rishi Tekchandani, Arthur Beaugeard, Aditya Prasad

 

Barrington High School, Barrington, Illinois

Students: Bryce Vist, Om Gandhi, Keegan Teal, Zachary George

 

BASIS Scottsdale, Scottsdale, Arizona

Students: Katelyn Cai, Shivank Agrawal, Karsen Wahal, Mitchel Wang

Blue Valley High School, Stilwell, Kansas

Students: Ronak Shah, Nikhil Reddy, Aviral Misra, Sam Fine, Shadaan Syed

Brentwood College School (#1), Mill Bay, British Columbia, Canada

Students: Amelia Hadfield, Ben Rossouw, Evan Luksay, Maurits Freybe, Sarah Richards

 

Brentwood College School (#2), Mill Bay, British Columbia, Canada

Students: Mahir Arora, Ryangwon Kim, Nate Phillips, Michael Wang

 

Bridgewater-Raritan High School, Bridgewater, New Jersey

Students: Aryan Jain, Aman Wadhwa, Pravar Jain, Tarun Trivedi, Sid Inta, Rushikesh Manche, Arjun Khanna, and Ritvik Chandrashekhar

 

Coronado High School, Henderson, Nevada

Students: Abigail Spencer, Sanjay Shankar, Justin Bayani, Dylan Beach, Freddy Nie, Ayda Atici

 

The Davidson Academy of Nevada, Reno, Nevada

Students: Claire Burkhardt, Tyler Burkhardt, William Contine, Erika Filter, Caitlin Hamilton, Sam Hasegawa, Henry Korver, Sandeep Maligireddy, Reaghan Moore, Brandon Pan, Emhyr Subramanian, Zane Williams

DuPont Manual High School, Louisville, Kentucky
Students: Sarvesh Babu, Smrithi Balasubramanian, Naren Chittem, Elizabeth Gallagher, Pranav Kanmadikar, Demos Negash, Romith Paily, Zain Tariq

 

East Mountain High School, Sandia Park, New Mexico

Students: Aubrey Amon, Abigail Bryant, Autumn Hamman, Steffen Ortiz, Christian Pereira

 

East Ridge High School, Woodbury, Minnesota

Students: Matthew Bi, Lan Do, Caleb Moon, Sam Padmanabhan

 

Enreach Beijing, Beijing, China

Students: Yingshan Zhao, Kuo Liu, Zhiyu Gao

 

Enreach Shanghai, Shanghai, China

Students: Arthur Zhao, Joshua Chen, Ricky Jin, Rachel Fei

 

Generation’s School, Karachi, Pakistan

Students: Hamayel Mashkoor, Misha Asim, Rabia Khalid Lakhani, Wardah Khan

 

Hamilton High School (#1), Chandler, Arizona

Students: Afreen Shah, Meena Nishtala, Shravan Pejavar, Raj Chopra, Sazma Sarwar

 

Hamilton High School (#2), Chandler, Arizona

Students: Daniel Shih, Nivea Krishnan, Ria Manathkar, Jasmine Sun, Juhi Khandelwal

 

Hankuk Academy of Foreign Studies, Yongin, Republic of Korea

Students: Kunhee Park, Minjung Seon, Kidon Song

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Hathaway Brown School, Shaker Heights, Ohio

Students: Ryan Brady, Sejal Sangani, Shruthi Ravichandran

 

Hobby School of Ulaanbaatar, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Students: Anudari Naran-Ochir, Misheel Amarsanaa, Baasansuren Erdene, Oyukhishigt Lyndon, Sansar Batbayr

 

Hunter College High School, New York, New York

Students: Samuel Ahn, Shayan Ashraf, Manon Fuchs, Scott Klein, Max Li

 

International School of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Students: Boris Pavlov, Eli Bertuccioli, Jacob Mansfield, Matteo Zocco

 

Ivy Bridge Academy, Alpharetta, Georgia

Students: Albert Cho, Matthew Kim, Eric Cho, Bobby Missell, Rohit Jivangikar, Brian Shon, Joshua Kim, Allison Wang

 

Jasper High School, Plano, Texas

Students: Neil Gupta, Charles Hou, Priyanka Gupta, Kelly Hu, Leonard Yu, Tirth Shah, Anushka Kumar

 

Jayshree Periwal International School, Rajasthan, India

Students: Lakshya Rajoria, Arjun Raj Loomba, Mehul Jangir

 

John Handley High School, Winchester, Virginia
Students: Malachi Imoh, Samantha Thomas, Tori Stanford, Sally Sydnor

 

Kealakehe High School, Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Students: Liam Aspirin, Kea Clebsch, Jasmin Kim, Camylle McDonald, Alexandra Ruff, Henry Schiff, Tye Tabadda

 

Ladue Horton Watkins High School (#1), Saint Louis, Missouri

Students: Daniel Chayet, Ari Gottesman, William Xie

 

Ladue Horton Watkins High School (#2), Saint Louis, Missouri

Students: Christopher Chen, Huamin Gao, Louis Li, Zerubbabel Marut, Joshua Wolk

 

Ladue Horton Watkins High School (#3), Saint Louis, Missouri

Students: Ayush Ajmani, Ashna Chali, Phani Chintakunta, Eli Goldstein, Athena Vinch

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McKinney Boyd High School, McKinney, Texas

Students: Justin Chan, Archan Patel, Sam Mauceri, Jack Nulisch, Peyton Childs, Nathan Kennedy

 

McKinney North High School, McKinney, Texas
Students: Isabelle Agustin, Kayley Barton, Katelyn Hall, Madeline Medina

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The Milan Hodža Bilingual Grammar School, Sučany, Slovak Republic

Students: Filip Chobor, Rebeka Demúthová, Filip Kužma, Šimon Pekar

 

Millburn High School, Millburn, New Jersey

Students: Rose Gao, Agnes Han, Beatrice Han

 

Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, Maryland
Students: Alex Jiang, Anika Seth, Jonathan Wen, Maxwell Zhang

 

Mountain House High School, Mountain House, California

Students: Ameya Puranik, Anisha Yeddanapudi, Dhruva Kollikeni, Immanuel Victor, Laiba Bajwa, Megha Nagaram, Saksham Madaan, Udit Karthikeyan, Chandrasekar Kamaraj

 

New Hope Academy (#1), Torrance, California

Students: Junyong Hong Eugean Choi Jacqueline Chang

 

New Hope Academy (#2), Torrance, California

Students: Donovan Hwang, Jennifer Kim, Luke Cho

 

North Allegheny Senior High School, Wexford, Pennsylvania

Students: Jiany Zhou, Emma Scott, Nicole McGaa, Krishna Naik

 

Notre Dame High School, Sherman Oaks, California

Students: Simon Callaghan, Jack Daggenhurst, Ariana Fotovat, Hunter Rice

 

The Olympia Schools, Hanoi, Vietnam

Students: Phuong-Anh L. Nguyen, Duy-Hieu Le, Phuong-Hoa Le, Thanh-Trang Vu

 

Peak to Peak Charter School, Lafayette, Colorado

Students: Ayush Garg, Brandon Guo, Leonard Shearer

 

Pine-Richland High School, Gibsonia, Pennsylvania

Students: Amish Sethi, Andrew Ni, Samuel Stella

 

Pine Tree High School, Longview, Texas

Students: Ashly James, Marilyn Shen, Brandy Gonzalez

 

Plano West Senior High School, Plano, Texas

Students: Aditya Kumar, Andy Shufer, Lillian Ye, Michelle Ma, Renee Li, Rohan Kamalakantha, Shruti Kotha, Suchir Vemulapalli

 

Premier Debate America, Pasadena, California

Students: Nevin Gera, Ethan Hwang, Benjamin Waldman, Peter Zhang

Saratoga High School, Saratoga, California

Students: Apurva S. Chakravarthy, Sanjana Somayajula, Shivali Kattumadam

 

Shanley High School, Fargo, North Dakota

Students: Rose Grimestad, Mitchell Krings, Lexi Ochsner, Joshua Ward

 

St. Christopher’s School, Isa Town, Bahrain

Students: Vansh Patel, Tamara Himani, Saachi Kumar

 

St. Mark’s School of Texas, Dallas, Texas

Students: Sahitya Senapathy, David Yang, Michael Anderson, Ned Tagtmeier

 

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Alexandria, Virginia

Students: Arjun Aggarwal, Raunak Daga, Rishi Lahoti, Richard Song

 

Union County Magnet High School, Scotch Plains, New Jersey

Students: Maya Dias, Sayee Edekar, Aashi Mishra, Kevin Sun, Felix Yu

 

University High School, Tucson, Arizona

Students: Delaney Barrow, Grace Driskill, Logan McGoldrick-Ruth, Samir Rein, Aerin McQuillen

 

Vienna International School, Vienna, Austria

Students: Gurubharan Ganeson, Gregor Kossmann, Daniel Salaru

Warrenton High School, Warrenton, Oregon
Students: Mara Dowaliby, Serena Moha, Isabella Morrill, Caitlyn Sanders, Elizabeth Whitsett

 

Whitestone High School (#1), Delta Junction, Alaska

Students: Madison Miller, Abigail Lopez, Tamara Rodriguez, Kristen Miller, Nikolai Chavez,

Casey Seeger

 

Whitestone High School (#2), Delta Junction, Alaska

Students: Maria DiGloria, William Hasz, Caleb Lawhorne, Justin Greenleaf, Julian Baranoski

 

Whitmer High School, Toledo, Ohio

Students: Jackson Grefe, Jon Burkart, Ronnie Grondin, Michelle Zheng, Kathleen Inman, Olivia Wetzel, Emily Ly

 

The Woodlands Secondary School, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

Students: Sunjoy Xia, Reana Yan, Malaika Mitra, Ali Al-Hasnawi, Louisa He

 

Woodward Academy, College Park, Georgia

Students: Armaan Ajani, Praval Kandimalla, Saket Surapaneni

 

Wooster High School, Wooster, Ohio

Students: Anna Nacci, Sylvie Shaya, Sophia VanSickle

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The “Top 64” teams will now compete in a single-elimination, written debate tournament. Teams will continue to debate the topic, “Resolved: When in conflict, a nation’s self-interest should outweigh its international commitments to migrants.” Essays will be volleyed back and forth via e-mail and judges will select the advancing teams. This format continues until the final eight teams emerge. Those teams earn an all-expenses-paid trip to New York City to compete in the IPPF Finals on April 25, 2020. The IPPF Champion takes home a $10,000 grand prize!

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For those teams that did not advance, your evaluation forms and certificates of participation will be mailed to you by next week.

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On behalf of the Brewer Foundation and NYU, thank you to every team and student that submitted an essay. The judges were impressed by the submissions!