In fact, I spent years heavily studying three modern languages:

• I traveled to Salamanca, Spain to learn Spanish at the oldest university in Europe

• I took Chinese my senior year (and ended up being the only kid at my school to win prizes for two modern languages)

• And I took the most advanced English lit courses at Exeter, while running Student Council as Secretary + Senior Class President.

Come senior fall, I was left staring at these random ingredients and wondering how I could brand myself into something unique.

The answer I came up with?

Literature and diplomacy.

Notice how I didn’t pick languages and politics – that’s far less specific and far more cliche.

Most Asian kids do a mix of STEM and music, but somehow my passions inadvertently helped me stand out amongst the sea of other applicants.

I’ll be the first to admit– I got lucky.

My activities and interests were honestly pretty random, but by scrambling last min and coming up with this unique combo, I was able to get accepted to Yale, Princeton, Williams, Georgetown, UVA and more.

Not because I was the best at either one, but because few others in the applicant pool looked like that.

This is what we at ElevatEd call the “Double-Edge”:

Basically, fuse two niche, academic disciplines into a single, specific identity that admissions officers can’t forget.

Other successful examples include:

• LLMs and medieval literature

• Cardiology and investigative journalism

• Prosthetics and indigenous accessibility

One of our students two years ago got into Stanford by leveraging linguistics + economics.

She didn’t do this theoretically – she launched an Indigenous social enterprise that generated $21K for artisan communities.

It’s one thing to make up a brand; it’s another to show your impact.

Twenty years ago, a single spike was enough. Not anymore. Admissions officers at top schools see thousands of students who are in the top 1% at one thing.

The students who get remembered — and admitted — are the ones who combine two things in a way nobody saw coming.

The rarer the combination, the higher your odds of getting accepted.

By the way, if you want to see your chances of getting in, peep our admissions rubric here! → elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time, Kevin @ ElevatEd

P.S. The double edge isn’t just an activities strategy; it’s an essay strategy too. When your personal statement, your supplements, and your activities list all point to the same two-word thesis + identity, admissions officers don’t just remember you, they’ll fight to write your acceptance letter.

The biggest myth in the admissions game is that top colleges are for the ‘best students.’

• The valedictorians with perfect SAT/ACT scores

• The kids with a bajillion debate/business/CS awards

• Essentially the students who peaked before they were old enough to drive

After helping over 1,500 students get into schools like Harvard, Stanford, Yale Duke and more… I’ve discovered that the students who get into their dream school are rarely the most accomplished people in the room.

They’re the most specific people in the room.

The ones who made admissions officers pause mid-read and think: wait…this is new, this is fresh! I don’t think I’ve seen this before.

A few of my favorite examples:

• The quantum computing kid who’s obsessed with medieval Spanish literature.

• The euphonium player who ran a psycho-statistical analysis on Star Wars villains.

• The girl who combined martial arts with meditation, psychology and behavioral science research.

Admissions officers rarely remember “well-rounded.” They remember characters and archetypes. They literally walk out of committee meetings saying: “I vote for the nuclear peace + boxing girl” or “what about the African-American lit + chemistry dude?”

Your job isn’t to check every box. It’s to check the “most unique” box ✅

Over the next few weeks, we’re breaking down the complete Ivy League playbook in this Substack newsletter (all for free!) 🤓

We’ll explain key concepts (some of which are well-known in the industry and some we invented), including, but not limited to:

1. Spikes and Double-Edges

2. Stamps of Legitimacy

3. Every Factor in College Admissions (split into those you can control vs. those you can’t)

4. And more!

The main idea: STOP trying to be the best version of everyone else’s application.

Start building the most unique version of yours.

By the way, we created a free admissions rubric modeled after Harvard + Stanford’s!

Check it out here today→ elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time,

Kevin @ ElevatEd

That’s how Alex opened his personal statement, and it helped lead him straight to Duke University!

Alex is a student from rural Alabama who attended a public magnet boarding school.

On paper, his credentials were strong:

Asian-American, first-generation student with a 3.98 GPA and a deep interest in pre-med research.

But here’s the reality...those “stats” are actually more like a pre-requisite than a differentiating factor. In a world where everyone has perfect grades, how did Alex stand out?

Simply put: His Double Edge/Dual Spike combines independent neurotoxicology research on Parkinson’s disease with a decade of sibling caregiving.

Both were traced back to the same source = his parents spent years working in poorly ventilated nail salons and developed chronic migraines and tremors that looked like early Parkinson’s symptoms.

But his essay is what sealed the deal.

Alex’s Common App essay is a letter to his two younger brothers.

“Every kid loves rushing home to Mom and Dad after school... must have been disappointed seeing me every time! Burnt rice aromated the kitchen. You two [Alex’s younger siblings] were definitely not supposed to be sword-fighting with brooms.”

He describes bribing his five-year-old brother with Skittles to practice reading flashcards. Teaching the twelve-year-old piano over FaceTime from a boarding school dorm 200 miles away.

Even if you personally haven’t faced the same extenuating or difficult circumstances as Alex, I’m sure you have a down-to-earth story about helping family. Trust me-- after doing this for years, this is one of the few consistently winning essay topics!

The common app essay didn’t even need to mention neuroscience (Alex wrote about that in his Why Duke essay). Instead, it showed that Alex’s intellectual vitality and his caregiving instinct come from the exact same place: a nine-year-old watching his parents brush off symptoms they couldn’t afford to treat. His parents’ health was his question; his brothers were his motivation to answer it.

The #1 takeaway? The essays that stick aren’t the “most impressive.”they’re the ones that feel the most human.

The strongest applications don’t treat “academic” and “personal” sections as separate pieces; they tell one unified story from every angle.

What if you could predict and improve your chances before you apply? (Spoiler: you can!)

After studying admissions rubrics from Harvard and Stanford, we built our own:

See where you stand → elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time,

Kevin and Vennela, ElevatEd School

Not a professional internship.

Not a research position.

A (menial) job. The kind where you clock in, a stranger is occasionally rude to you, and your manager doesn’t care that you’re aiming for the Ivies.

This matters way more than most families realize. Admissions officers read thousands of applications from students who have been carefully optimized — every activity selected, every summer accounted for.

A real job is one of the few things on an application that’s genuinely hard to curate. It signals you’ve operated in the adult world, handled something unglamorous, and inherently conveys humility.

For Asian-American and/or high-achieving applicants specifically, this gap is almost universal. The profile tends to be strong on academics, research, and structured achievement... but thin on the kind of grounded, independent experience that makes an AO feel like they’re reading about a person, not just a student.

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But beyond what it signals, a job can do real work in your essays. In fact, Kevin wrote about this exact topic in his common app (a perfect example of a vulnerability-themed essay as he cooked mountains of fried rice)!

Your application benefits not just from the soft skills a job builds, or what it tells admissions officers about your independence — but from the material it gives you to write about!

For example, you could love behavioral science and also work concessions at a movie theater, watching how people make decisions differently on a Friday night versus a Sunday afternoon, solo versus a first date. Or you could be fascinated by environmental systems and spend the summer doing landscaping + gardening, learning more about soil composition and water runoff than from any academic experience.

The job doesn’t have to be impressive.

It just has to be real.

What if you could predict and improve your chances before you apply? (Spoiler: you can.)

After studying admissions rubrics from Harvard, Stanford, and other college admission agencies, we built our own.

See where you stand → elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time,

The ElevatEd School

Before school lists, test scores, or activity descriptions, we ask one thing: write down 21 details about yourself.

Not accomplishments. Details. Shower thoughts. Quirky habits. The thing your friends would say about you that would never appear on a college application. The memory that surfaces at 2am for no reason.

Here’s why. When we read the average student’s college application, we still don’t know who they are. They play violin, volunteer at a food bank, maintained a 4.0. Nothing tells us what it’s actually like to be them. And that’s what admissions officers are most curious about—who you are, not just what you’ve done!

The 21 Details Exercise (inspired by College Essay Guy, sharpened over years of dissecting real applications) fixes that. It forces specificity. Not “I like video games,” but I noticed a design flaw in Rimworld’s AI and wrote a mod that now has 13,000+ users. Not “I’m close with my dad,” but the specific bowline knot he taught me on a cedar sailboat named Queequeg. "Not "I'm a Star Wars fan" but “my favorite scene is episode 3 when Yoda fights Palpatine) and I love swinging a lightsaber around to destress in between intense Pomodoro sessions!”

When students complete this exercise honestly, we can almost always find the essay sitting inside it within five minutes.

If you’re starting the college application process and don’t know where to begin: start here.

And if you want to try it tonight: open a doc, set a 20-minute timer, and write 21 things that are true about you. Specific. Personal. A little embarrassing, maybe.

Send a few over via email, I’ll tell you if you’re headed on the right track!

What if you could predict and improve your chances before you apply? (Spoiler: you can.)

After studying admissions rubrics from Harvard, Stanford, and other college admission agencies, we built our own.

See where you stand → elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time,

The ElevatEd School

Brown, UCLA, Berkeley and more!

Ashley is a female student from Arizona:

Public school, Asian-American, 3.97 GPA, 1580 SAT, 36 ACT.

At first glance, those numbers look untouchable — all 99th percentile or above. But at schools like Brown, most of the kids in that applicant pool have numbers just like hers. So what actually got her in Early Decision?

Simply put: Her double edge integrates an incredibly unique combo: international martial arts and behavioral science research to explore human social dynamics through psychology and Spanish literature.

But her essay is what sealed the deal

“In elementary school, when my friends and I played Greek gods and goddesses, I was assigned Aphrodite– instantly, I embraced the ultra feminine, bratty persona.”

Throughout her personal statement, Ashley highlights different personality quizzes she took over the years.

In elementary school she was assigned Aphrodite.

In middle school she learned she was Slytherin and bought snake jewelry.

And when she found out she was Scorpio she became mysterious and blunt.

Each identity fit until it didn’t.

Then on a trip to the Yucatan, a Vedic astrology guide told her she wasn’t Scorpio after all. Rather than losing faith, she took it as evidence of something more interesting: that people carry contradictory truths about themselves, and the tension between them is where identity lives.

The essay closes not with a revelation but with a commitment: “I act with conviction but not with blind certainty.”

Admissions officers read thousands of essays about research projects. Make yours memorable.

Write about your quirks, include lots and lots of specific details, and show that you are growing, learning, and living life with intention.

What if you could predict and improve your chances before you apply? (Spoiler: you can!)

After studying admissions rubrics from Harvard, Stanford, and other college admission agencies, we built our own.

See where you stand → elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time,

The ElevatEd School

P.S. We’ve helped over 1,500 students earn Top 20 acceptances since 2020. Know a high schooler who should see this? Forward them this email!

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Since 2020, ElevatEd students have earned over 1,500 acceptances to schools with acceptance rates under 20%.

These students came in with strong profiles — transcripts, scores, activities lists. But so did most applicants at these schools. What separated our admits was something more specific: the precision of their story and the proof behind it.

Three things made the difference every single time.

• The Double Edge. The unique combination of two or more distinct areas of interest that scream “unforgettable.” Think climate-tech researcher plus community food builder—the exact combo one of our students (Stanford ‘26) had!

• The Stamp of Legitimacy. Everyone claims a passion project — our students had proof. The Stanford admit? Four research roles, a pending patent, a co-authored paper on AI image search, and a World Vegetable Center internship in Taiwan!

• Essays that made AOs feel something — not just learn something. One of our students (Yale ‘25) opened her essay with a racial slur from an 8-year-old at the homeless shelter where she’d just shown up to teach robotics — writing ultimately about her persistence and her mission to make engineering more accessible. Shock → Curiosity → Hope

None of this requires being exceptional from day one. It requires starting with intention.

What if there was a way to accurately predict—*and improve—*your chances? (Spoiler: there is).

After studying Harvard, Stanford, and other college counselors’ admission rubrics, we made our own! It evaluates six dimensions: academic profile, activities depth, essay clarity, school list strategy, recommenders, and timeline.

The best part? It predicted students’ odds with 90%+ accuracy.

See where you stand → elevated.school/getstarted

Until next time,

The ElevatEd School

P.S. Know a high schooler who should see this? Forward them this email! The rubric takes 3 minutes and shows exactly where they stand :)

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“None of my friends or family believed in my applications. They thought UF was the best I could do.”

Penn. Cornell. UNC. NYU. Pomona. Boston University. And a full ride to UNC as a Kenan Music Scholar — $6,000 for study abroad included.

This student (let’s call him L) didn’t have a standout GPA or national awards. He’s from St. Augustine, Florida, a town most admissions readers won’t recognize. His own family thought the University of Florida was his ceiling.

He shattered it.

How? With a killer spike and some extraordinary essays!

L plays euphonium, one of the rarest instruments in competitive applications. He built four years of depth around it, submitted music portfolios everywhere he applied, and earned three rec letters that all said the same thing: this kid doesn’t just love music, he’s the real thing.

But here’s what AOs loved most about his application.

His UPenn community essay (which we’d rank in the top 0.5% of every supplemental we’ve ever read) wasn’t about music at all. Rather than write about his most impressive EC, he wrote about building Spotify playlists as a casual side hobby.

“It was my #7 or 8 activity in the Common App. I came up with the idea a day before the Penn deadline and cooked it up at 1 AM.”

He turned a small, personal quirk into a window to his mind: curious, connective, deeply himself. Admissions officers who’d read ten thousand essays about passions and leadership read this one and remembered it.

His Common App essay went even further. He wrote about Andor—the Star Wars TV show—and how music preserves social identity through periods of historical upheaval. He connected playing euphonium to something much larger than himself: the idea that art carries memory across generations, across resistance. It was intellectual, personal, and completely unexpected. That essay made readers feel something—which is exactly what separates admitted from waitlisted.

We’ve helped over 1420 students earn Top 20 acceptances since 2020. The ones who break through don’t try to sound impressive. They try to be clear, one story, one thread, pulled all the way through.

What’s your (or your student’s) “one thing”?

Start here → elevated.school/getstarted

Reply to this email and tell us—we read every response!

Warmly,

The ElevatEd School

P.S. Send us your materials—activities list, top schools, any essay drafts—and we’ll send back written feedback plus a short Zoom clip with our honest read. No charge :)

Book a free strategy session → elevated.school/getstarted

Rising sophomores (or younger): Develop your edge

• Shadow 3–5 people in fields you’re genuinely curious about. Interested in neuroscience? Message a research assistant at your nearest university lab on LinkedIn. Interested in startups? Cold-email a founder through their company’s contact page.

• Try one competition in your area of interest — even before you’re ready! Bombing a hackathon in 10th grade is useful. Bombing one in 12th grade is a problem.

• Start a simple Google Sheets activities tracker: roles, hours, outcomes. This is your baby activities list/resume — you’ll thank yourself in 1-2 years, I promise. Also if you show us your tracker, we’d be happy to give you free advice on how to improve it!

Want a second set of eyes on your tracker? Book a free session → elevated.school/getstarted

Rising juniors: Hone your Double Edge and get PROOF for your work

• Your double edge is all about unique combinations. One of our students got into Stanford studying linguistics. Her double edge? Co-founding an Indigenous social enterprise that generated $21K for artisan communities. Linguistics and economic empowerment —those are the unique combos that get you into Harvard, Stanford, etc.

• Get at least one official stamp of legitimacy (external validation that your work exists beyond your own resume). These days, everyone has a passion project. AOs are asking: is yours real? Email one org with a specific ask: I’ve been building X, I can help with Y. The yes rate is higher than you think.

• Build your competition calendar before July. John Locke, Scholastic, Conrad Challenge, ISEF, Olympiads. These take weeks to prepare — and most only happen once a year. Map deadlines now, before junior year buries you.

Not sure if your double edge is landing? Let’s find it together → elevated.school/getstarted

Rising seniors: Common App opens in 9 weeks

• Write your one-sentence identity — and then build your essays around it. I am someone who _. If you can’t finish that sentence clearly (and specifically), your essays won’t be clear either. This is the foundation!

• Get a job this summer — even a menial one. Working before college changes how you write about work, people, yourself. Every year, Ivy League admission officers tell us thi sis one of the best ways to improve your profile. Working a job communicates humility + leads to great essay material.

• Start your brag sheets now — before teachers ask. Rec letters are 10–15% of your entire application. Treat them as seriously as any essay.

Send us your materials — activities list, top schools, any essay drafts — and we’ll send back written feedback plus a short Zoom clip with my honest read (completely for free!).

Book a free strategy session → elevated.school/getstarted

Furiously rooting for you,

The ElevatEd School

I need to tell you about my trip to Yale last week. But first, a confession.

I’ve spent years working with students who think getting into an Ivy League school is about being perfect. The perfect GPA, the perfect extracurriculars, the perfect essay that makes admissions officers cry tears of joy. And every time, I want to grab them by the shoulders and say: that’s not how this works!! That’s not how any of this works.

But instead of just telling you, let me show you.

I recently sat down with Morgan, a sophomore at Yale studying computer science and psychology, who did something most admitted students never think to do: she requested her admissions file.

Want to know what Yale wrote about Morgan, the student they admitted?

“Very cute.” “Nice personal qualities.” “Friend to many.“

I’m not kidding. That’s what they wrote.

Not “stellar academic record” (though she had one). Not “impressive leadership” (though she had that too). What got her in was simply…personality. The way she showed up as an actual human being, not a college-application robot.

Here’s what happened: After weeks of writing and rewriting her common app essay, Morgan scrapped her entire draft one month before the deadline and started over. She wrote about tutoring a middle schooler in double bass—a kid who spent half the lesson talking about comics and web toons instead of practicing. Her essay connected that student’s love of storytelling to music—encouraging them to imagine a music video while they played.

The admissions officer’s exact words? “Warm, engaging, clarity of vision.”

Then, came the alumni interview. Older white guy from Texas (let’s call him Tom), and she’s thinking, we have nothing in common, this is going to be a disaster. But when she mentioned yearning for more people with similar interests, Tom opened up about moving from Texas to New Haven, and shared how transformative it was to be in a diverse community.

And you know what the admissions file said? The interview confirmed everything the essay showed. The person on paper matched the person sitting across from Tom at a nursing home (yep, that’s where the interview took place).

If you learn anything from this post, it’s that this consistency is everything. When your essays, your recommenders and your interviewer keep repeatedly hammering home the same personal qualities (not just academic ones), your odds of getting into an Ivy League school skyrocket.

Another juicy detail that Morgan discovered was that Yale has an internal abbreviation for “one of the most.” Essentially, this means that if your recommendation letter says “this student is one of the most [exceptional/creative/dedicated] I’ve seen in X years or in my career,” they note it!

If you want the full story—including the parts that made Morgan’s jaw drop and what Yale life is actually like—watch the complete interview on YouTube.

She walks through everything they wrote, what surprised her most, and real talk about freshman year. Spoiler: apparently doing laundry at Yale is its own special kind of nightmare.

Look, if you’re sitting there right now spiraling about your application, wondering how to stand out in a sea of 4.0 GPAs and perfect test scores, here’s what I need you to understand: 1) you’re not alone, and 2) admissions officers aren’t looking for perfect. they’re looking for you. The best, most specific parts of you. The version that notices when a kid lights up talking about comics and figures out how to make that a music lesson.

Don’t just work harder. Work smarter. And for the love of everything, be yourself! They can tell when you’re not.

I’m personally offering free 30-minute application profile reviews (a $500 value) through the end of June. If you want someone to look at your application and tell you what will actually make you stand out, email me at vennela@elevated.school and I’ll send you the details.

If this resonated, tap the ❤️ below—it helps other families find us.

Until next time,

Vennela from ElevatEd

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The students we work with at ElevatEd who tend to produce the strongest college essays share one thing in common that has nothing to do with their GPA: they read outside of what they were assigned. Not performatively, but intentionally… and with the right books.

Here are four books we genuinely recommend, ones that appear on actual university syllabi and that will incrementally change the way you write.

1. Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

These are essays that move between personal experience and political reality without simplifying either one.

Baldwin is one of the most precise writers in the American tradition, and what makes him so instructive for student writers is that he never rushes. He sits inside a contradiction and makes you stay there with him until something true emerges, which is a skill that takes real discipline and feels almost countercultural in a world that rewards quick takes and tidy conclusions.

Why it comes up in applications: Why it comes up in applications: Notes of a Native Son is widely regarded as one of the great works of American nonfiction, placing #19 on The Modern Library’s list of the 100 best 20th-century nonfiction books. Master Baldwin’s precision and you won’t just stand out in interviews; you’ll prove you’re ready for the intellectual rigors of a top-tier campus.

2. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Written by a psychiatrist who survived four Nazi concentration camps, this is one of the most-read books in the world for good reason.

Frankl’s central argument is that meaning, not happiness, is what sustains a human life, and he builds that case from memory, observation, and clinical insight in a way that manages to be simultaneously devastating and clarifying.

Why it matters for your writing: Frankl stays close to the specific, the observable, and the real, and his restraint is precisely what makes the book so powerful. The best personal essays work the same way: they earn their emotional weight through detail and honesty rather than through drama.

Why it comes up in applications: This book appears on reading lists at Harvard, Princeton, and across psychology and philosophy programs. Word of advice: Try to hone in on a specific experience and find meaning from it when building out a strong college essay, like Frankl does with his book.

3. Feel Free by Zadie Smith

If you’ve never read Zadie Smith’s essays, you are in for a treat!

Feel Free collects Smith’s writing on everything from the film Get Out to Brexit to the nature of joy to what it means to write fiction in the first place. What makes Smith extraordinary is her range. She moves between the personal and the analytical with complete fluency, and nothing is ever too small to deserve her full attention.

I got to see her give a craft talk on writing in 2018 at the NYU Writers in Paris workshop, where I was spending the summer as an undergrad, and what I remember most when listening to her speak was: this is what it looks like when a writer is completely confident in her voice.That energy is all over this collection.

Why it matters for your writing: Smith demonstrates that you don’t need a grand or tragic topic to write something worth reading. What you need is a genuine point of view, the willingness to follow an idea wherever it goes. Do you have a hot take, or an interest in a subject that might be outside of your immediate comfort zone? Set a timer for 10 minutes, and see what happens when you put pen to paper.

4. Bluets by Maggie Nelson

I have to be honest with you: this is my favorite book on this list, and one of my favorites of all time.

Bluets is a masterclass in structure, built out of 240 paragraphs on the color blue, grief, longing, and what language can and cannot hold. A professor of creative writing at NYU assigned this to me as extracurricular reading, and I return to it constantly. It reads as experimental verse poetry and it also functions as the most honest kind of intellectual inquiry: what happens when you take one thing you genuinely cannot stop thinking about and commit to following it all the way through?

One quote I love: “I have been trying, for some time now, to find dignity in my loneliness. I have been finding this hard to do. It is easier, of course, to find dignity in one’s solitude. Loneliness is solitude with a problem.”

Why it comes up in applications: Nelson’s work is taught at tons of major universities’ creative writing departments, and knowing her work signals a level of genuine literary awareness that very few applicants have. Read it before your first college interview, and we promise you’ll have something genuinely interesting to say when they ask what you’ve been reading.

At ElevatEd, we work with students on writing every day, from Scholastic submissions to Common App essays to personal statements for the most competitive programs in the country. The students who walk in already reading books like these aren’t just better writers; they’ve mastered the art of telling their story in the best manner possible that’s ultimately what every application is trying to demonstrate.

Book a free intro call with ElevatEd here.

If this resonated, tap the ❤️ below — it helps other families find us.

Until the next chapter,

Julia from ElevatEd

P.S. One of the best-kept secrets in college prep: most top universities publish their course reading lists publicly. Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and others post the actual syllabi their students work from — and browsing them is one of the fastest ways to get a feel for the kinds of texts, ideas, and conversations a school actually values. If you’re seriously considering a school, it’s worth spending twenty minutes with their reading lists before you write a single word of your application.

Odds are, if you’re an outstanding high school student, there’s an impressive trail of accolades next to your name already. AP classes, perfect GPAs, robotics team, debate captain. As you very well know, the higher you climb, the narrower the scope becomes. How do you edge out the competition on the climb to the top – or at least get into the college you want?

Whether you’re a STEM student or a concert violinist, you’re probably overlooking the simplest way to stand out: summer writing contests.

Students we’ve worked with at ElevatEd have gained acceptance to all the Top 20 Universities. One student we coached was accepted to Stanford, Brown PLME, Yale and more. Given his STEM background, the writing awards helped him stand out from a sea of web developers.

We’ve helped students win or place in YoungArts, Concord Review, and nearly every major competition listed below. To see a full list of students we’ve helped become award-winning writers, visit our website

Writing contests give students something most school assignments don’t: a real audience, real stakes, and a reason to take their work seriously.

So the question becomes – where should you start?

Below are a few of the most worthwhile writing contests to have on your radar this summer and into the early fall, along with what makes each one unique.

1. John Locke Institute Global Essay Prize

One of the most prestigious essay competitions in the world—and one of the few where serious thinking actually matters.

Open to students 18 and under, this competition asks you to tackle big questions across philosophy, politics, economics, psychology, theology, law, and history at a near-university level. With over 63,000 global submissions, only 16-18% are shortlisted.

Deadline Reality Check

If you’re reading this today (April 29), you have 1 day left to register for John Locke. And if you haven’t started your essay, now is the time to get additional support.

Most students wait until summer to “figure it out.” By then, the strongest submissions are already written…and some crucial deadlines have even passed.

Who this is for: Students who want to prove they can think—not just write—and are ready for something genuinely difficult.

Why it works for admissions: Demonstrates intellectual depth and humanities credibility. Especially powerful for STEM-focused students who need to show they can handle rigorous philosophical arguments.

Want an edge? We work with Nathan Bray, a former John Locke judge and PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. Last year, 8 of his 12 students were shortlisted—a 67% success rate compared to the 16-18% global average. Nathan knows which questions have the highest probability of success, how to develop arguments that withstand scrutiny, and what actually separates shortlisted essays from the pack. Email vennela@elevated.school if you’re curious to learn more about how to get started ASAP.

2. NYT Summer Reading Contest

Run by The New York Times, this 17th annual weekly summer contest invites students to respond to anything in The New York Times—articles, essays, images, podcasts—in just 250 words.

Open to students 13-19 worldwide, with the freedom to choose what you respond to each week.

Timeline: Runs June 6 - August 15, with weekly submission deadlines.

Who this is for: Students who want to sharpen their voice quickly and consistently by engaging with real, current ideas. It’s also low time commitment—perfect if you’re balancing other summer activities.

Why it works: Builds a habit of critical response writing. Winners get published in The New York Times, which is credibility gold on a college resume!

3. YoungArts Writing Competition

Run by the National YoungArts Foundation, this is one of the most competitive and respected creative writing competitions in the U.S.

Open to students 15-18 (grades 10-12) across fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and spoken word. Winners receive cash awards, mentorship opportunities, and invitations to national programs in Miami.

Deadline: Typically early October (most recently Oct 8).

Who this is for: Students serious about creative writing who want recognition, funding, and a real foothold in the arts world.

Why it works: YoungArts winners and finalists have access to an alumni network that includes some of the most successful artists in the country. It’s not just an award—it’s a door.

4. The Concord Review Essay Contest

Hosted by The Concord Review, this is where serious academic writers go.

You’re submitting a full research paper (5,000-10,000+ words), and only a small percentage are published. This isn’t for casual writers—it’s for students who already love historical research and want to produce something closer to college-level work.

Deadlines: Rolling, with major cutoffs on Feb 1, May 1, Aug 1, Nov 1.

Who this is for: Students who already love research and want to produce something closer to college-level (or beyond).

Why it works: Published essays in The Concord Review carry serious weight. Admissions officers know what it takes to get in.

5. John Estey Student Writing Competition

Hosted by the American Writers Museum, this competition invites students to respond to a yearly prompt with a personal or analytical essay.

Open to students in grades 8-12.

Deadline (2026): Register by May 29 (submission deadline typically follows shortly after).

Who this is for: Students who want a strong, structured prompt and a realistic shot at recognition without the intensity of the top-tier competitions.

At a certain point, every strong student looks the same on paper… so take the paper and write a story that stands out.

We’ve helped students place in all of these competitions. Some went on to Ivies–others went toStanford. Others used their wins to secure merit scholarships or build portfolios for creative programs (like the Iowa Young Writer’s Studio)!

What they had in common: they didn’t wait until the last minute, and they didn’t go it alone.

To prepare for one of these contests with a tutor at ElevatEd,

schedule a free consultation call !

Until the next chapter,

Julia from ElevatEd

Madonna said it first: you’ve got 4 minutes to save the world. I’d add: you’ve also got 4 minutes to save your writing.

Here’s what four minutes looks like in my actual life. I’m a touring musician and a writing tutor, which means on any given week I might be running sound check at 4pm, teaching a writing session at 7pm, playing the show at 9pm, and then driving through the night to the next city. I have friends who are novelists…but I am not living that life. There is no three-hour writing session with a candle and an Americana playlist. There is a Notes app open on my phone in the back of the tour van, and there is whatever I can get down before we pull up to the venue.

What I’ve learned — from touring, from teaching, from being a person with exactly zero spare hours — is that the enemy of writing isn’t talent. It’s the myth that you need a significant block of time to do it well. You don’t. You need a container. Something with a clear start and a clear end, so your brain stops negotiating whether you have the time and just goes.

From my experience (and my award-winning students’): a song is a perfect container.

I started giving students this exercise after I got an email I wasn’t expecting. It was 2024, I was on the road in Texas for the South by Southwest Music Festival, and a message came in from a creative writing professor I’d had at NYU. He told me he’d been using a timed writing exercise I submitted as my final project for his Poetry Masterclass — and that it had worked so well, even he himself had started using it.

I was astonished (and flattered!). It was amazing to me that a beloved professor and his students were using my timed writing exercise–and I hadn’t (especially considering what I do with my life). So, I decided to take my own advice, which I’ll now share with you:

Writing Prompt: Press play on your current favorite song.While it plays, write–it could be a short poem, a scene, a memory. Follow the title, follow the lyrics, follow wherever the music pulls you. Once the song ends, you’re done writing!

Try this week’s prompt and reply with what you wrote… I read every single one!

Here’s mine, written to Didn’t I by Darondo (3 minutes 30 seconds)

Didn’t I whisper a secret through the conch shell, and hold it up to your ear, hoping you would hear me instead of the ocean? Was it all a mistake before it began? Our drives at sunset, with your curled hair wrapped in a bonnet of sunshine and canvas. Do you know the worst way to say goodbye, and if so, can you do it quickly? Can you tell me how to solve a riddle without any clues? Is the conch shell still in your tattered backpack? Didn’t I tell you that secret anyway?

Since beginning this ritual with my own students, I’ve noticed a huge shift: my students aren’t just efficient, they’re proficient because their ability to expand their creative output has become consistent over time.

Four minutes. That’s all it takes.

If your student or child could use more of this – real coaching, real writing practice, real results – book a free intro call with ElevatEd here.

If this resonated, tap the ❤️ below. It helps other families find us.

Until the next chapter,

Julia from ElevatEd

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