RENAISSANCE RHETORICIAN

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August 11, 2021

For information on enrollment and registration at Notre Dame, please visit the admissions section of our website here.

Rising senior earns highest academic award given by national forensic organization, says opportunities and support for students at Notre Dame led to a unique academic, athletic and faith experience.

Each year, fewer than 1 percent of students involved in speech and debate in this country earn the Academic All American award from the National Speech and Debate Association, an organization created in 1925 to advocate for students participating in speech and debate activities.

"This distinguished award recognizes students who have completed at least five semesters of high school; earned the degree of Superior Distinction in our Honor Society (a total of 750 or more merit points); achieved rigorous criteria for GPA and/or test score requirements; and demonstrated outstanding character and leadership," said J. Scott Wunn, NSDA's executive director, about the honor.

One of those distinguished awardees is Katherine Schmidt, a rising senior heading into her final year at Notre Dame Prep. She earned the award based primarily on her speech and debate work leading up to the end of her junior year. 

She said she was surprised when she first heard the news.

"I knew what the end goal was at the beginning of this process, but I wasn’t sure if I was able to accomplish it before the end of my junior year," she said. "I was just really glad all my hard work and long hours of speech writing and debating paid off. I'm also so thankful for my public forum debate partner Michael Kenny NDP'24 who did all of last year's debates with me. Without his help I would never have been able to go to enough debates to earn this award status."

Schmidt, who also served as co-captain of the school's team last year along with Amishi Mahajan NDP'21 and will be team captain for this coming school year, is the second NSDA Academic All American at Notre Dame, following in the footsteps of Kenny's brother, John, who graduated from NDP in 2019.

Debating since lower school

Schmidt has been participating in speech and debate activities since the fifth grade when she attended the annual Summer Debate Institute hosted at NDP (now called EDGEcamp Forensics). In sixth grade, she competed at the NSDA National Middle School Tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah. By the seventh grade, she was competing in congressional debate against high schoolers in the Great Lakes Debate League and in eighth grade, she earned membership in Notre Dame Middle School's inaugural Michigan Youth in Government delegation, which participated at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing. 

In 2018, Schmidt made another bid for the national circuit at the NSDA Middle School Tournament in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., and in her freshman year, she was a member of NDP's inaugural high school delegation for Michigan Youth in Government, where she advanced a bill to create a two-day holiday in October to recognize both the discoverers of America and its Native American Heritage. She also has qualified for one of two seats for the State of Michigan at the National Catholic Forensic League Grand National Tournament in Milwaukee, Wis. Schmidt also qualified for the 2020 NCFL National tournament before it was canceled due to the pandemic.

This year, she participated in public forum debate at the first virtual Grand National Tournament hosted by NCFL and she hopes to get a chance to compete in person in the nationals, which will be held in Washington, D.C., over Memorial Day 2022.

Renaissance student

A busy schedule, to be sure, and if there is such a thing as a renaissance women in high school, the multi-talented Schmidt might indeed qualify.

She has a number of AP courses already under her belt with more to come this year, and she's earned a current GPA just shy of 4.0. During her freshman year at Notre Dame Prep, and with no prior experience, she joined the school's swim and dive team team after some encouragement from Coach Mark McGreevy, who also teaches religion at the middle school. 

Despite a very busy forensics and academics schedule, she's been competing with Irish swimming every year since, juggling all her other activities and forensic tournament conflicts. She says her Notre Dame experience since coming to campus as a fifth grader has been invaluable in helping her manage the multiple directions she's been pulled, all while maintaining good grades in a very demanding academic environment. 

"Academically, Notre Dame has challenged me and pushed me to become a better student," she said. "But with such dedicated teachers, I can truly say that I have had one of the best educations anywhere. I can’t thank them enough."

Faith and college goals

Schmidt also noted that her faith has been enhanced in very unique ways at the school.

"As a Lutheran going to a Catholic school I was able to learn a lot about the similarities and differences of the two religions," she said. "And because of that, I've been able to learn and grow in my faith in ways not otherwise possible in a Lutheran school, for example. I've also been able to help my community in so many ways, from our eighth-grade project when we made a free portable library for the City of Pontiac to the hats we made for the needy during Make It Matter Day."

She added that without the support and guidance from the NDPMA community, she never would have been able to maintain such an active role in the broader community or to grow so much as a true Notre Dame upright citizen. 

Now anticipating a relatively normal school year, Schmidt will be exploring her post-secondary options.

"I've already been doing a few college visits this summer," she said. "And with the help of my counselor, Ms. Mahoney, I have a pretty clear view of what I want my college future to look like. I'm interested in psychology as a major and with an education like I've received at Notre Dame, I will be able to go to some of the top psychology schools around."

For information on enrollment and registration at Notre Dame, please visit the admissions section of our website here.

Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org

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About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. Notre Dame Preparatory School enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower schools enroll students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the National Association of Independent Schools. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school’s home page at www.ndpma.org.