After competing at UCLA’s BruinMUN competition from Nov. 7-9, U-High’s Model United Nations team returned to campus to host the Lab Model United Nations Conference on Dec. 6, bringing more than 800 student delegates to the Laboratory Schools — far above last year’s 600. 

The conference marked a major milestone for Model UN competitions hosted by Lab and gave ninth graders a controlled environment to compete in, while other U-High Model UN students chaired committees. 

“There were some space constraints we adapted to, and we had to fit more desks in each of the committee rooms,” Secretary-General Maggie Yagan, a senior, said. “But it ended up being a great thing overall, and we’re excited to continue to grow it over the next few years.”

The successful hosting effort came after a more disappointing result at UCLA, where the team has not competed in recent years. 

Secretary-General Daniel Chang, a senior, said U-High’s team didn’t do as well as they wanted.

“I think part of it was just that our preparation wasn’t as good as we wanted to have before going into such a competitive conference,” Daniel said. “The other part of it was this being the first year in a while that we’d gone back to the California circuit, where it is pretty different in terms of judging and chairing.”

The team did not place overall but three people earned best delegate awards: sophomore Adrian Greenstone and the double delegate of senior Gaia Sperone and junior Brian Yang.