It is a lot of work if you have a child involved in various activities. My youngest daughter is an overachiever type A kid and participated in model UN, but it was hard for her to manage multiple sports, service hours, school work and model UN. She ended up dropping model UN.

Sounds awesome

Fantastic activity I knew nothing about until my HS DS joined- he really found his people in this club. It's great for kids who are into int'l relations, history, cultural study. My DS's favourite conferences have been the ones where the setup was historical (e.g., beginning of Palestinian crisis, negotiating turnover of Hong Kong) and the students negotiate what they think *should* have happened instead of what actually happened....sometimes they end up in a better place and sometimes HS kids figure out how tough problems are to solve....

Will definitely improve your DC's speaking and writing skills (for conferences that require papers)

Fantastic. Thanks all for the insight.

Op, you represent and have to argue/defend the political/economic interests of your (assigned/picked) country. It's role playing. During the conference "a crisis" happens - perhaps a war has just broken out, for example. And all involved countries have to negotiate a peaceful resolution. Or a monetary crisis. Or a humanitarian crisis.

Your student will take-on, temporarily, the mindset of their assigned country which may or may not be the viewpoint of the USA.

Also now they call it a presentation suit. We got those in HS.

My DD loved Model UN for the trips and people. Really upped her public speaking skills also.

OP I sponsored/coached MUN at a local high school with a high FARMS rate; my students didn't have $300 to drop regularly. They got their business attire second hand. You don't have to go out of town to find conferences. Many local high schools host, and Georgetown runs NAIMUN every Feb.

https://naimun.modelun.org