[3] Traditionally, Model UN has been associated with affluent schools and communities, but in recent years, the activity has expanded to reach more students.
For example, SCMUN (hosted by the University of Southern California), offers advanced debate for high school delegates who are hoping to glean substantive and academic value from Model United Nations conferences.
[7] Several of these programs also run conferences for middle schools, most notably Long Beach Poly's BunnyMUN, which is completely free.
Chicago is a major hub of the Model UN community at large, but maintains a strong sense of independence, and is known to have a characteristic focus on realism and innovative crisis simulations.
[13] MUN is mostly seen as an educational political exercise, where the students understanding of the world and power is emphasized, and where awards and resolution writing tend to be de-emphasized.
[14][15] Model United Nations of the University of Chicago (MUNUC) is the largest high school conference in the Midwest, featuring 33 different committees in 2021 for its 33rd session, with several thousand delegates in attendance.
CIMUN is known to be among the most innovative and fastest growing Model UN's in the US and features some of the most realistic simulations available for high school students.
[15] The American Model United Nations (AMUN), an independent organization, is the largest college-level conference in the Midwest and featured 15 committees.
This is in contrast to teams in the East Coast/Mid-Atlantic region, where a larger number of private schools, universities, and conferences allow Model UN to operate on a more multi-state basis.
This is in comparison to the facilitator style of chairing more common in the rest of the United States which allows delegates to direct more of the flow of debate.