Given the current environment, we wanted to share a quick update on VBI 2020:
As of today, we are still excited to host three in-person sessions of VBI at Swarthmore, LMU, and UCLA. The details for those sessions can be found HERE.
We are also excited to announce VBI Online, a virtual session of VBI that will run June 27 - July 10, 2020. Tuition will be $2295, and students will require a working internet connection that can facilitate video conferencing. To help us plan for our 2020 sessions, we are offering a discount of $200 on all enrollments until April 1—the code is MARCH2020. This discount can be used for either our online or campus sessions. You can register at vbidebate.com/register.
This offering is to support students who may be unable to attend in-person sessions, and so all families can feel safe and secure about their summer decisions. Students who register for VBI online are guaranteed a space at any in-person session of VBI, if they later decide to transfer their registration or add an additional session. If we are unable to host an in-person session of VBI due to Covid-19, registered students will be able to transfer to VBI online and receive a refund for the tuition difference.
Our curriculum team has been hard at work developing VBI Online and we are confident this will be a first-in-class online debate program.To be clear - online camp cannot and should not exactly mirror an in-person session. Doing so ignores the fundamental difference of communicating via an online platform. Good online teaching is not the same as good in-person teaching done online.
As a result, VBI Online will be focused on achieving the same learning objectives as our in-person sessions, but we will be flexible, adaptive, and creative in our methods of delivery. In fact, many members of our leadership team are teaching right now through an online platform (at both high schools and universities), so we are gaining new insights by the day on best practices. Don’t worry - VBI Online will still feature all of the core aspects of the VBI curriculum: lab, modules, mentorship, practice rounds, and opportunities to work with all VBI instructors, just in an updated format! See here for more details: https://www.vbidebate.com/online-curriculum, and we will continue to update you as our plans develop.