Fordham’s Model U.N. team has placed in the top 10 on a prestigious international listing.
The club was ranked seventh in North America this month by the website Best Delegate, a go-to source in the Model U.N. community. It is the first time Fordham’s club has been ranked this high on the site, which determines the rankings by tallying results from a Model U.N. team’s performances in any of 30 international competitions, with special weight given to the most competitive ones.
A Winning Mindset
Connor Larson, a 2025 grad and the club’s president last year, attributed the success to the team’s winning mindset. They all agreed that they had the talent and the drive to crack the top 25 this year.
“A good way to put our philosophy would be, ‘It’s okay if you lose, but what we don’t accept is you go in not thinking, ‘I’m here to win,’” he said.
A Team Effort
The team’s collective skills in diplomacy, research, and rhetoric were especially evident this past year in competitions at Columbia University; NYU; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Southern California, where they won awards as a team—a first for the club.
At this year’s annual competition at Harvard University, which is the field’s most prestigious, the team also scored three second-place individual awards and one fourth-place award. Two years ago, the team first made its name in the Model U.N. world with a third-place finish at Harvard.
The teams’ combined performances at 11 competitions resulted in a jump up in Best Delegate’s top 50 list, from 16 to the No. 7 spot.
A Position at the Council on Foreign Relations
For Larson, it was a gratifying way to finish out his time at Fordham. Model U.N. had been on his radar in high school in Milford, Connecticut, but his opportunities were limited there, so he focused on basketball instead.
He graduated in May with a B.A. in International Political Economy, and upon graduation, he joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a program assistant. He got the job in large part because he learned through the club how to speak well in public, research complex topics, and synthesize information.
“You also have to be easy to work with in Model U.N. People won’t work with you if you’re too mean, quiet, or aggressive with your ideas,” he said.
Success Draws New Members
He’s also excited about the direction of the club, noting that two newer members told him they chose to come to Fordham because they’d heard of it while in high school.
“It’s incredible to see that we’ve had that sort of impact with the students who have made this team a major part of their Fordham experience, as well as the future Rams that we don’t even know yet,” he said.
