|
The Cornell Club of Rochester is pleased to announce its annual Essay Contest. The competition is open to all eleventh grade high school students in the greater Rochester area. We hope that participating in the contest will help develop your critical thinking and writing skills. In particular, our recent experience demonstrates these skills are critical to success in your college application essay next fall, as well as for your Regents English exam later this spring. We will award a first prize of $100 in cash, and at least three second place prizes of $50 each; we will also designate an unlimited number of finalists, semi-finalists and honorable mentions, depending on the quality of submissions. In past years, up to 40% of the entrants have been so designated. In addition, if the first prize winner is accepted by and chooses to attend Cornell, the Club will increase the award to a total of $1000 during the winner's sophomore year. Similarly, if any second prize winner attends Cornell, that award will be increased to $500. The Cornell Club of Rochester offers the prize; winning or placing favorably in the essay contest in no way implies a favorable admission decision by any of Cornell’s seven undergraduate colleges. But we also know from the past years of the competition that every essayist designated as a semi-finalist or higher has been accepted to at least one “highly selective” college! Background One of the most important skills that you will continue to develop during the balance of your high school years and in college is the ability to thoughtfully evaluate opposing viewpoints – in other words, to think critically. This skill is important not only for students and scholars, but also for nearly every occupation you might choose, as well as for your personal mental growth and maturity. The Rules
Questions? Send an email to CornellEssayContest@gmail.com. We expect to announce this year's results no later than May 15, 2008. Winners will be selected from among those entrants demonstrating the clearest writing and expository skills, imaginativeness of their position, and the integrity and logic of their supporting arguments -- and counter-arguments. Quotation Sets 1. “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” (Albert Einstein, What I Believe) versus “To understand God’s thoughts we must study statistics, for these are the measure of his purpose.” (Florence Nightingale) and “Consciousness is mysterious, and quantum theory is mysterious, and wouldn’t it be nice if one explained the other?” (Sir Francis Crick) 2. “It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” (James Baldwin) versus “Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action. We cannot learn men from books.” (Benjamin Disraeli) 3. “Public policy these days is driven mostly by events, not books.” (Steven S. Hall, NY Times Book Review, November 14, 2004) versus “I don't care who writes a nation's laws ... if I can write its economics textbooks.” (MIT Institute Professor and Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson) 4. “But war's a game which, were their subjects wise, kings would not play at.” (William Cowper, The Winter Morning Walk) versus “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” (Thomas Jefferson) 5. “There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room for only one hundred percent Americanism, only for those who are Americans, and nothing else.” (Theodore Roosevelt) or “This country was settled and built by those seeking to be a part of it, and not apart from it.” (Robert Bartley editorial, The Wall Street Journal) versus “Let us celebrate the multicultural differences that made America great.” (Bill Clinton) 6. “What is past is prologue.” (Shakespeare, The Tempest) versus “We must disenthrall ourselves from the past. Otherwise it becomes a barrier to progress.” (Abraham Lincoln) 7. “Money is life to us wretched mortals.” (Hesiod, 8th century BC) versus “Money buys everything except love, freedom, immortality, silence and peace.” (Carl Sandburg, 1952) 8. “People have to believe in their capacity to act and bring about a good result. Leaders must help them keep that enlivening belief.” (John W. Gardner, The Tasks of Leadership) versus “The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self restrain enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1907) 9. “The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present.” (Hobbes, Calvin and Hobbes) or “How beautiful is youth, that is always slipping away! Whoever wants to be happy, let him be so: about tomorrow there’s no knowing.” (Lorenzo de’Medici, Trionfo di Bacco et Arianna) versus “Grow old with me! 10. “The middle of the road is all the usable surface. The extremes, left and right, are in the gutters” (Dwight D. Eisenhower) versus “People who stay in the middle of the road get run over.” (Aneurin Bevan) and “The hottest place in hell is for those who remain neutral in times of moral crises.” (Dante) * * * * * 2005 Essay Contest WinnersIn the 2005 essay contest, the Cornell Club of Rochester received 498 entries from many area high schools. As always, the competition was fierce, but many dedicated Cornell Club judges narrowed the list down to these winning entries. The essays below are published with the permission of the students and their parents. Click on each student's name to read his or her essay:
2004 Essay Contest WinnersIn the 2004 essay contest, the Cornell Club of Rochester received 438 entries from students attending eighteen different high schools. The essays are reproduced here with the permission of the students and their parents. Click on each student's name to read his or her essay:
|
