Pranav Garigipati

Ascend Academy - Congressional Debate Coach

Pranav Garigipati is an incoming junior at Rutgers University, New Brunswick and a graduated senior at Dublin High School. Pranav is also a two time Ascend Alumnus! During his time at Dublin High, he served as the President and Debate Captain of the Speech and Debate team. Through his high school career, he competed in Congressional debate, in which he accumulated 14 TOC bids, placed 5th at Yale, 3rd at Princeton, was a two time Sunvite finalist, and a semifinalist at the TOC. He also dabbled in World Schools debate where he had an undefeated preliminary record and received the 7th place speaker award at 2021 NSDA Nationals. 

Since then, Pranav’s been an active collegiate parliamentary debater where he was ranked 7th in the nation amongst college first-years and placed in the top at the 20 North American Debating Championship. He’s also been active as a coach. His students have reached final rounds at the TOC, NSDA Nationals, and Harvard, and placed top 6 at Yale, Emory, Blue Key, and Sunvite. Pranav’s experience judging national circuit rounds and competing in college has formed his coaching philosophy — identifying the debate happening in the judges head and winning that debate innovatively and intuitively. Pranav’s coaching emphasizes strong argumentation and developing clear round vision. He believes using strong logical analysis and straying away from relying too much on evidence. He loves powerful rhetoric as a tool to highlight his advocacies and finding each student’s own rhetorical and speaking style. 

Outside of debate, Pranav enjoys playing unnecessarily hard Pokémon games, spending too much time dissecting Kendrick Lamar and Lupe Fiasco lyrics, and making concerningly bold NBA bets.