a word of caution for debators

Debate is a very time consuming activity. Some kids love it. But, you need to be very carefull to go really deep into it. A friend's daughter was ranked nationally in policy debate. However, all her high school year, she travel frenquently to out of states for competition. Let alone the travel expense which runs over 10,000, she has to miss many days of classes. In her case, it might well worth it as she got the national ranking. But, in many cases,kids' has to compromise their grade to participate the activity. I see many kids were forced to drop debate in junior and senior year.