Participation in the HWS RR is considered prestigious among BP debaters[1][2][3][4][5] as it is limited to exactly 16 teams that qualify via either an automatic bid given to the champions of major debate tournaments that happen throughout the year, or a competitive application to the tournament's selections committee, with auto-bid teams given priority.
[6][7][8] Unlike most parliamentary debate tournaments, such as the World Universities Debating Championship, which use power-pairing[9] to determine preliminary round matches, the HWS RR uses round-robin scheduling to determine team pairings for each of its five preliminary rounds, before advancing the top four teams to the final.
While the World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) had already long been established at the time, its open nature meant allowing a significant variation in skill among teams.
If a team qualifies for more than one auto-bid (by winning more than one of the tournaments listed) or decides not to attend the tournament, then any extra slot is opened up for an at-large bid, where teams that apply are selected based on their achievements in debating.
Dual rooms began to see use in 2016 as part of research on the reliability of judge decisions.