Doing LD or policy is an okay idea because it might make the transition to college policy (which I think of as the main form of college debate) a little easier. I wouldn’t be afraid to try policy if that is the style that the school you go to is offering. There are plenty of people who have had successful debate careers at the open level starting debate as novices in college. You will have a leg up if you have competitive experience in another event in high school. I have found college policy to be a lot fairer than high school debate (not that it’s perfect, but better than hs). People don’t care about rep nearly as much. If you stick with it, go to a lot of tournaments, and work hard, you could be successful.

Most important thing is to see if your college has a team, and what kind of debate they do. Then, from there I'd reach out to the coach and let them know you are interested. If the college you are looking at does policy or LD, you will want to do policy in high school, as it is the closest. But the truth is that college debate is very much built around extremes. Either, you are being actively recruited to join a team that doesn't allow walk-ons in any significant capacity. Or, your school is open to everyone and it really doesn't matter what you did in high school.

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LD in college is just one person policy. The time structures are different to more closely reflect the policy format. Your first thing to do is to find out if your university has a team that competes in LD. If they do then neato. If not you have to see if you can start one and compete solo.

Are you in college now? Or like senior year of HS?

senior in hs

Depending on how much time you have, IPDA is a format that doesn't require tons of time to prep.

Looks like no-one has mentioned it, but depending on where you're going, I would also suggest looking into American Parliamentary ---- a lot of great PFers seem to do well at it coming in!

Here’s a list of colleges that have debate teams: https://www.nwforensics.org/schools/list-of-college-speech-debate-programs.pdf Some of it is p outdated but it might give you a better insight into what schools have programs. Also even if you didn’t debate a ton in HS a lot of teams will still love to have you debate with them. I did 4 years of PF in HS, and now I’m at WWU doing policy debate. You just have to seek out the programs. If you’re having trouble researching if they have programs, it can sometimes help to look at the communication departments website. Thats where the debate info was hidden at my university. Even if they don’t have debate, sometimes they have mock trial or model UN, which might be ok alternatives. Best of luck!