We’ve written about the John Locke Institute Essay Competition (JLIEC) before, discussing the basics of the competition, and how it can improve your chances of college admissions, and shared the success of Ivy-Way students shortlisted for the Junior and regular Essay Competition. In general, the goal of the JLIEC is to encourage “independent thought, depth of knowledge, clear reasoning, critical analysis and persuasive style.” For the uninitiated, here’s the breakdown of the basic information:
John Locke Institute Essay Competition Basic Info
Task:
The essay must respond to one of the provided questions in their chosen subject category. Essays should consider counterarguments and objections to be successful.
Word count:
2,000 words or less (excluding diagrams, tables, endnotes, bibliography, and authorship declaration).
Subject categories:
1. Economics 2. History 3. Law 4. Philosophy 5. Politics 6. Psychology 7. Theology Plus a junior category for students 14 and under
Who can participate?
⦿ Secondary (high school) students from all countries ages 15 to 18. ⦿ Junior Category: students 14 and under
Judging criteria:
Based on “on knowledge and understanding of the relevant material, the competent use of evidence, quality of argumentation, originality, structure, writing style and persuasive force.”
Prizes:
The winner of each subject category receives a US$2,000 scholarship towards the cost of JLI’s summer and gap year programs. The winner of the best overall essay will receive a US$10,000 scholarship for the same.
Given that the JLIEC prompts for 2025 have been released, we thought we would revisit the topic in the form of Q&A. We’ve tried not to cover the same ground we’ve covered before so please take a look at our previous post if you still have questions.
Should you consider writing an essay for the John Locke Institute Essay Competition?
If you have any interest in the liberal arts (humanities or social science), especially one of the seven subject categories of the competition (Economics, History, Law, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, and Theology), Ivy-Way counselors often recommend our students to submit an essay to the John Locke Institute Essay Competition. It’s also a great opportunity for anyone who has even a passing interest in writing.
Why? Regardless of whether you receive a commendation, the process of responding to one of the essay prompts will deepen your understanding of the subject and give you practice in writing a research-based argumentative essay (a common college assignment). Besides, the prompts are interesting; you’ll be sure to learn something useful for you personally, and when you are applying to colleges, you may find that skills and insights gained by writing for the competition will make your applications stand out. Most of the students we’ve guided through the process have reported that it was an incredible, transformative experience. They felt like they became better writers and more critical thinkers.
What are the prompts like?
All of the prompts have something of a philosophical bent (not just the philosophy prompts). They challenge you to apply concepts from different fields to analyze contemporary and hypothetical scenarios. Take a look at this sample from the 2023 prompts to see what we mean:
“A government funds its own expenditure by taxing its population. Suppose, instead, it relied solely on money newly created by the central bank? What would be the advantages and/or disadvantages?” Economics-1
“In what sense are you the same person today that you were when you were ten?” Philosophy-2
“Which characteristics distinguish successful movements for social change from unsuccessful ones?” History-3
“If China becomes the leading superpower, what would that mean for the people who live there? What would it mean for everyone else?” Politics-2
What are the prompts for 2025?
Economics
What kinds of behaviour are engendered by the hope of profit? Is such behaviour better or worse, on balance, than the behaviour we should expect if all enterprises were owned by charities or governments?
What will be the effect on socio-economic mobility of the UK government’s plan to impose value added tax on school fees?
Should Oxford lower its admissions standards for the sons and daughters of generous benefactors?
History
According to Bertrand Russell, “Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt and Churchill of Locke.” To what extent was he correct?
Should anyone be ashamed of their nation’s history? Should anyone be proud of it?
Which figure in history did most to enlarge human freedom?
Law
What injury should one person be permitted to inflict on another in the defence of private property?
“Use every man after his desert, and who should ’scape whipping?” Should the law treat offenders better than they deserve?
Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
Philosophy
What moral obligations do we owe to living persons that we do not owe to future persons? What are the implications of your answer for policy-making?
Should we treat non-human animals well because they have rights, interests, neither, or both?
“When civilians are the main target, there’s no need to consider the cause. That’s terrorism; it’s evil.” Is this correct?
Politics
Should politicians ever be punished for lying?
David Hume celebrated the wisdom of “unlettered men”. In a democracy, do the votes of the unlettered tend to protect a country against the bad ideas of the lettered or do the votes of the lettered tend to protect a country against the bad ideas of the unlettered?
Diversity is fashionable, but is it valuable?
Psychology
Is objectivity all in the mind?
Eleanor Roosevelt declared, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Is she right?
What is self-deceit?
Theology
Is atheism implausible?
Why would the creator of a trillion galaxies become angry if you have sex with your boyfriend or eat bacon for breakfast?
Why pray?
Junior Prize
Your citizenship at birth was chosen for you. Which citizenship would you have chosen?
Do you benefit more from your own freedom of speech or from other people’s?
Who is more powerful – Donald Trump or Elon Musk?
Since 1920, twenty-one presidents and prime ministers from nine countries have been graduates of Philosophy, Politics & Economics (PPE) at Oxford. Would it have been better if they had studied history?
What is your fair share of what someone else has earned?
Why do you continue to use your smartphone more than is good for you?
Why do people become more boring as they grow up and grow older?
How do you get started?
First, you’ll want to start by researching the topic and critically evaluating different viewpoints before constructing your own argument. The prompts don’t give you much to work with. In most cases, you’ll have to define some terms and set the limits of the scope of the argument you want to make. You’ll need to use evidence to support your plans, and students often find a writing research mentor at Ivy-Way to help them choose the best prompt and brainstorm the evidence.
Taking the economics prompt above–about government funding through money creation rather than taxation–as an example, you could start with an overview of monetary policy and the role of central banks in managing a country’s money supply. Then you need to present both advantages and disadvantages: the benefits of economic stimulus by avoiding direct taxation against the long-term risks of inflation and potential laws of confidence in the currency. You could use historical examples and economic theories to support your analysis.
Second, you’ll also need to consider potential counter-arguments. Using the philosophy prompt above about the continuity of the self, you might argue that personal identity persists over time through the continuity of consciousness. You are the same person as you were at ten because of your continuous psychological experiences, memories, and sense of self that you can trace back to your younger self. The counterargument is that personal identity is not fixed due to physical changes. Consider the Ship of Theseus argument applied to the human body: cells, tissues, and organs rejuvenate periodically and over a 7 to 10-year period your entire body has completely regenerated. The person you are today differs significantly from who you were at ten due to physical development and biological processes. Dramatic physical changes challenge the notion of a singular, unchanging identity.
Finally, you must ensure your essay is coherent, well-structured, and persuasive. From start to finish the entire task is somewhat complex and probably best done with some help from an experienced advisor.
Where can you find past essay winners?
One of the best ways to prepare to write your own essay is to read past winning essays and use them as “mentor texts” (as the NY Times editors refer to them). Mentor texts are “pieces of literature that you…can return to and reread for many different purposes. They are texts to be studied and imitated…” (the National Writing Project). The point of mentor texts is to learn to craft your own essay by discovering the moves the writers make and how they effectively make your own argument.
You can find a selection of past essay winners on JLI’s website. There are eight winning essays on that page, from first to third prize from 2021 to 2023, including 2023’s grand prize winner. That’s a fairly limited collection of essays. Here are some other winning essays you can use as mentor texts:
Law – 2020 First Prize. Prompt: “Does a law that prohibits the selling of sex protect or infringe women’s rights?”
History – 2020 First Prize. Prompt: “How is the modern world different from previous periods of history and why did it come into existence when and where it did?”
Theology – 2020 First Prize. Prompt: “Many people have committed acts, execrated and deplored by others, in obedience to sincerely held beliefs. Can we reasonably ask anyone to do better than simply to obey his own conscience?”
Politics – 2020 First Prize. Prompt: “American citizens give away more than $300 billion each year in charitable donations. Only a tiny fraction of this (less than 0.001%) is donated to federal, state, and local governments. Politicians claim that they spend taxpayers’ money efficiently, to accomplish the most good with the budgets at their disposal. But if this were true wouldn’t governments be able to compete more successfully with private charities? What are the implications of your answer?”
Psychology – 2020 First Prize. Prompt: “Isn’t all reasoning (outside mathematics and formal logic) motivated reasoning?”
Junior Category – 2020 First Prize. Prompt: “Who should own your data? The companies with which you agree to share your data, everybody, just you, or nobody?”
What are some tips for crafting a successful essay?
Read the question/prompt carefully. Make sure you understand what the question is asking and that you address all parts of it.
Demonstrate familiarity with relevant theories. Others have written about the question at hand. Find some authors (through research, of course) that you find particularly convincing or unconvincing.
Figure out what you want to argue and write a thesis. You are writing to convince the reader. Keep that reader in mind throughout.
Use evidence effectively. You’ll need to show how you arrived at your claim from the evidence you examined. Evidence may include quotations, paraphrasing, data, graphs, or primary sources. It’s not enough just to state some evidence: you’ll need to analyze it and explicitly connect it to your claim.
Think of alternative answers to your question and anticipate objections. Offering and analyzing evidence that supports your thesis isn’t enough. You need to consider the arguments that readers can raise to challenge your thesis and explain why your argument is stronger than the alternatives.
Make sure your essay has a clear logical flow. When you have strong clear paragraphs, you guide the reader through your argument by showing how each point fits to your thesis.
End with a conclusion. The form of the conclusion varies depending on the nature of the essay you’ve written. But in general, you should conclude by stating “what” you have said, explaining the “so what” (why the reader should care), and end with the “now what,” some insight or new way to understand the question that results from reading your essay.
Take a look at Lumiere’s excellent article for additional tips along with illustrative examples. Their writing tips include: focusing on essay structure, grounding arguments in theory, being bold in conclusions, and seeking mentorship for guidance in logic and argumentation.
How competitive is it? To what extent can the JLIEC boost my chances of college admissions?
It’s fairly competitive. Each year 1,000s of entries are submitted from over 100 countries. About 10% of essays for each category are shortlisted and considered for a prize. Shortlisted candidates are also invited to Oxford for the award ceremony. There are three prizes for each of the seven categories one of which is chosen as the overall best essay, so 21 prizes not counting the junior category winners.
That being said, some subjects are more popular and receive more submissions. In 2021, Theology had about 50 people on the shortlist while Economics had over 200. So one strategy might be to submit for a category that has fewer entries. However, given how long it takes to research and write one of these essays (weeks at least), you might be better off just choosing a topic that genuinely interests you.
Ivy-Way’s In 2021, one of Ivy-Way’s John Locke mentors, Dr. R.J., guided student Xin Yu Cai to become a finalist in the John Locke Competition. The following year, Xin Yu was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), showing just how valuable the John Locke Competition can be!
In 2021, one of Ivy-Way’s John Locke mentors, Dr. R.J., guided student Xin Yu Cai to become a finalist in the John Locke Competition. The following year, Xin Yu was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), showing just how valuable the John Locke Competition can be!
Recent winners of the grand prize have gone to essays in Philosophy (2023), Economics (2022), Law (2021), Philosophy (2020), and Economics (2019).
As to how much of a boost it gives your college application, it will certainly demonstrate your abilities to conduct research, engage with complex ideas, and articulate a well-reasoned argument. All of these are considered valuable by admissions officers at elite universities. Over half of the John Locke alumni enrolled in just eight universities: Chicago, Columbia, Georgetown, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale.
Final Thoughts
The John Locke Institute Essay Competition is a great opportunity for you to practice your research and writing skills and gain some insight into a subject that you’re interested in. It also has the potential to help you develop as a critical thinker and demonstrate your curiosity and creativity. And, of course, it will make your college application stronger.
If you’re looking for a mentor for the John Locke competition or want to do your own independent research, consider applying to Ivy-Way’s Research Mentor Program.
Dr. R.J. is a writer, editor, teacher, and academic coach & consultant. He's a devotee of speculative fiction, especially stories involving spaceships, robots, time travel, and/or laser swords. He currently works at Ivy-Way Academy helping students achieve their full academic potential.
