And the Best Large Delegation goes to…. Langley High School! The cheers of Langley’s esteemed Model United Nations team fill the air. The team has just one first place in the University of Pennsylvania’s international Ivy League Model United Nations Conference (ILMUNC).

The Langley team has earned quite a reputation within the Model UN community. Many schools recognize Langley delegates as some of the best in the country. The win at ILMUNC, one of the largest Model UN conferences in the country, with over 3,000 delegates and 50 schools from around the world, continues to solidify this prestigious reputation. Langley MUN managed to beat out other incredibly talented teams, including those from Thomas Jefferson High School and Marshall High School.

“Langley’s steady improvement is there result of many reasons. One of the biggest factors is leading to [the team’s] success is how much the club has grown. In recent years, many more people have joined MUN with the potential to be great at MUN.,“ explains Langley Model UN participant and sophomore, Emi Gardiner. “MUN is a family and having such amazing people around you, helping each other, allows us all to do better than we could ever do alone. ”

The closeness of the team has clearly helped it achieve great things. But there are even more ways Langley MUN has achieved success. The work to compete and do well in Model UN conferences is astounding to most high schoolers.

“We practices speeches in our weekly meetings, write at least 15 page papers, and get to learn how to act in a professional environment,” said Gardiner. “I’m kind of surprised how much I learned from MUN. I am hardly ever nervous about speaking in school like I used to be before. You also learn how to network and just talk to people so that you can work with them later. It is a skill that will be helpful later in life, finding internships, jobs, and many other opportunities.”

However, a win at ILMUNC does not mean the end of the road for the MUN team this year. The Langley team will take on an even greater task. This March, Langley MUN will host its third secession of VIMUNC, or the Virginia Invitational Model UN Conference. Rather than competing with other schools, Langley will be running committees and organizing the conference, inviting other schools to compete at this forum which promotes research, public speaking, and diplomacy above all else.

“VIMUNC!” cries enthusiastic newcomer to the MUN team, freshmen Jenna Schwartz. “VIMUNC is definitely going to be big this year. I know that this has taken many months to prepare so far. Many of my fellow club members had to write lengthy and detailed background guides for the attendees, biographies about themselves, and put in huge amounts of time organizing the conference.”

Gardiner agrees. “VIMUNC takes tons of work to host and prepare. Our club’s officers have been hard at work assigning attending schools their positions, addressing countless logistical issues, and a plethora of other tasks that come when hosting a conference.

Langley’s conference has been incredibly successful in past years, hosting many schools and receiving a 10/10 review on Facebook. While it is a lot of hard work and takes many exhausting hours, VIMUNC is an incredibly rewarding and amazing experience. Other Langley students are aware of how much effort goes into MUN.

“I think all MUN kids are very smart and excel at everything they do. I really admire all those in the club and the hard work that they do,” said Langley Sophomore Matt Feinstein.

Clearly MUN is one of the greatest clubs at Langley and will continue to see numerous amounts of success, both away at conferences and within Langley’s halls as well.