Best Small Delegation

Best Small Delegation is a delegation-wide award presented at many Model UN conferences to the school or club that achieves the strongest aggregate committee performance while fielding a relatively small number of delegates. It is the small-school counterpart to Best Large Delegation (and, at some conferences, Best Delegation overall), and it exists so that smaller programs are not structurally disadvantaged when competing against universities or high schools that send fifty or more delegates.

The exact size cutoff varies by conference. Many North American collegiate circuit conferences split delegations into tiers based on the number of assigned committee seats, with thresholds commonly set somewhere in the range of roughly 10–20 delegates for the "small" bracket, though the precise number is set in each conference's award policy. Delegations above the threshold compete for Best Large Delegation instead.

Scoring is typically based on the per-capita performance of the delegation: the total weighted value of individual committee awards (Best Delegate, Outstanding, Honorable Mention, Verbal Commendation, etc.) divided by the number of delegates fielded, sometimes with adjustments for committee difficulty or position-paper scores. Because the denominator is small, a single missed award can swing the ranking, which makes consistency across every committee more important than peak performance in one room.

The award matters beyond the trophy itself:

• It is a recruiting and funding signal for university programs seeking institutional support.
• It is often weighted in circuit rankings such as those published by Best Delegate or the collegiate North American MUN rankings.
• It validates the strategy of sending a tightly trained, selective travel team rather than a large open roster.

Programs that consistently win Best Small Delegation tend to emphasize rigorous internal tryouts, heavy preparation per delegate, and coverage of varied committee types (GA, ECOSOC, crisis, specialized) to maximize award yield across the slate.