The Ayn Rand Institute has run its essay contest since 1985, drawing entries from secondary school students worldwide. The contest asks students to engage philosophically with the ideas in Rand’s novels — Anthem, The Fountainhead, or Atlas Shrugged, depending on the division — not as a comprehension exercise but as an exercise in argument. The student must take a position on a philosophical question, defend it with evidence from the text, and write with the clarity and persuasive force that serious philosophical prose demands. Prizes are awarded to fewer than one percent of entrants. The field is worldwide.
What that figure means in practice is this: a student submitting an essay enters a competition in which ninety-nine of every hundred entries will receive nothing. The essays that place are those that demonstrate not merely that the student has read and understood the novel, but that they have something to say about it — a thesis that holds, an argument that develops, a conclusion that follows. The judges are not looking for agreement with Rand’s ideas; they are looking for the capacity to engage with ideas rigorously, which is a different and rarer thing. The contest has run for nearly four decades and produced a substantial body of serious student writing in philosophy. Placing in it is a mark of genuine intellectual accomplishment.
This year, three Emerson students placed. Alyssa Han was awarded Second Place. Jinmin Lee was awarded Third Place. Ariane Lee was named a Finalist — itself a distinction that places her among the small percentage of essays the judges considered prize-worthy. Three students, three placements, one year. The results are set down below.
Incheon, South Korea
Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
Repulse Bay, Hong Kong
The ability to write a philosophy essay — to take a position on a genuine question, hold it against objection, and set it down in prose that a careful reader will find lucid and persuasive — is not a skill that examination preparation develops. It is formed by reading seriously, by being asked to say what one thinks and to defend it, by the slow accumulation of intellectual habits that no examination can test and no coaching can simulate. That three students produced essays of this quality, in a worldwide field judged by a standard of fewer than one in a hundred, is a result worth recording with genuine satisfaction. We are proud of Alyssa, Jinmin, and Ariane.