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Newnham College Woolf Essay Prize

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Newnham's Woolf Essay Prize is deigned to give students the opportunity to think and write about women in literature, history, society, and culture, while developing their independent study and writing skills. Entries should be 1,500-2,500 words long, and will answer one of three essay titles inspired by Virginia Woolf's:  A Room of One's Own. 

The prizes will be book tokens (£300 for first prize, £200 for second prize, and £100 for third prize, with limited highly commended and commended certificates also awarded).

The Woolf Essay Prize is open to all women in Y12 (or equivalent penultimate year of study) from any school type or country. Entries are welcome from students studying any combination of subjects, but may be of particular interest to those interested in English Literature, History, Politics, Philosophy, or Sociology.   

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Cambridge Essay Competitions

Essay competitions are brilliant for a number of reasons!

You can use them to:

The essay competitions usually become open for submissions after the winter holidays. Be sure to check any eligibility criteria, requirements and deadlines. This page will be updated when new competitions are announced, and when deadlines are passed, so check back regularly! All essay competitions and events at Cambridge (both online and in-person) can be found here 🔗 🌟.

Magdalene College Arts and Humanities Essay Competition 2024 🔗 🌟 Any student in their penultimate year at a state school can enter this competition, which will open in early 2024. Last year, there were 12 questions covering a variety of topics within the arms and humanities - you can read the winning entries here 🔗. To register your interest in this competition for 2024, fill in this form 🔗.

Fitzwilliam College Essay Competitions: various subjects 🔗 🌟 Fitzwilliam College runs a variety of competitions in Ancient World and Classics, Archaeology, History, Land Economy, Medieval World, Architecture, and Economics (this last one is for state-school UK students only). All competitions are open to Year 12 students and are designed to encourage students to pursue their interests in subjects they might not be able to study in depth at school. Last year, the deadline for all competition entries was the 1st of March, so make sure to check back in early 2024 for updates.

Newnham College Woolf Essay Prize 🔗 🌟 The Woolf Essay Competition is focussed on women in literature, history, society and culture. There are also competitions for other subjects - more information these will be coming soon. Webinars to help support your entry can be found here 🔗 . The deadline for the Woolf Prize last year was the 14th of July.

Girton College Humanities Writing Competition 🔗 An opportunity for students interested in pursuing any humanities subject to write creatively! Year 12 students may enter with an essay or piece of creative writing using an object from Girton College’s small antiquities museum, the Lawrence Room, as their prompt.

Robinson College Essay Prize: various subjects 🔗 Year 12 students may submit an essay of up to 2,000 words in response to one of the set questions, which cover a wide variety of academic subjects. The prize did not run in 2023, but may in 2024.

Trinity College Essay Prizes 🔗 These competitions give entrants the opportunity to write an essay of up to 2,000 words in response to the set question/(s). Last year there were competitions for English Literature, Launguages, Linguistics, Philosophy, Politics, Law, and History.

Did you spot a typo or formatting issue? Let us know by emailing us at [email protected] .

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Posts tagged ‘woolf essay competition’, enter to win 2022 angelica garnett undergraduate essay prize.

Posted in essay competition , International Virginia Woolf Society , tagged IVWS , Virginia Woolf , Woolf essay competition on Friday 10 June 2022| Leave a Comment »

Virginia Woolf reading at home

If you are an undergraduate with an interest in Virginia Woolf’s work, consider entering the International Virginia Woolf Society’s annual undergraduate essay competition. Winner of the 2022 Angelica Garnett Undergraduate Essay Prize will receive a cash prize and their essay will be published in the society’s newsletter.

The essay competition is held annually in honor of Virginia Woolf and in memory of Angelica Garnett, writer, artist, and daughter of Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell.

Essay requirements

• Undergraduate essays can be on any topic pertaining to the Woolf’s writing.
• Essays should be between 2,000 and 2,500 words, including notes and works cited, with an original title of the entrant’s choosing.

Essays will be judged by the society’s officers : Benjamin Hagen, president; Amanda Golden, vice-president; Susan Wegener, secretary-treasurer); and Catherine Hollis, historian-bibliographer.

Past prize winning essays can be read online .

The winnings

The winner will receive $200 and have the essay published in a future issue of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany .

To submit an essay, fill out the entry form and send your essay to Benjamin D. Hagen at [email protected].

All entries must be received by June 30, 2022.

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Third annual Angelica Garnett undergrad essay competition announced

Posted in Virginia Woolf , tagged Angelica Garnett , Angelica Garnett Undergraduate Essay Prize , Woolf essay competition on Thursday 2 March 2017| Leave a Comment »

The International Virginia Woolf Society will host the third annual undergraduate essay competition in honor of Virginia Woolf and in memory of Angelica Garnett, writer, artist, and daughter of Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell.

Angelica Garnett

Essays can be on any topic pertaining to the writings of Virginia Woolf, between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length, including notes and works cited, with an original title of the entrant’s choosing.

Essays are judged by the officers of the International Virginia Woolf Society: Kristin Czarnecki, President; Ann Martin, Vice-President; Alice Keane, Secretary-Treasurer; and Drew Shannon, Historian-Bibliographer.

The winner receives $200 and has the essay published in the Virginia Woolf Miscellany .

Please send essays in the latest version of Word. All entries must be received by June 5, 2017 . To receive an entry form , please contact Kristin Czarnecki at [email protected] .

New Virginia Woolf essay contest for undergrads

Posted in essay competition , International Virginia Woolf Society , Virginia Woolf , tagged Angela Garnett , International Virginia Woolf Society , Virginia Woolf , Woolf essay competition on Friday 23 January 2015| 2 Comments »

The International Virginia Woolf Society has announced a new undergraduate essay competition in honor of Virginia Woolf and in memory of Angelica Garnett , writer, artist, and daughter of Woolf’s sister, Vanessa Bell.

For this inaugural competition, essays can be on any topic pertaining to the writings of Virginia Woolf. Essays should be between 2,000 and 2,500 words in length, including notes and works cited, with an original title of the entrant’s choosing.

Essays will be judged by the officers of the International Virginia Woolf Society: Kristin Czarnecki, president; Ann Martin, vice-president; Alice Keane, secretary-treasurer; and Drew Shannon, historian-bibliographer. The winner will receive $200 and have the essay published in the subsequent issue of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany .

Please send essays as a PDF or in the latest version of Word.

All entries must be received by June 15, 2015. To receive an entry form, please contact Kristin Czarnecki at [email protected] .

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Woolf International Women Only Free Essay Contest Prize 2023

This article talks about the Woolf International Women Only Free Essay Contest Prize 2023 which is Essay Competition for High School Women. Submit your Entries by Jul 14, 2023. 0 days left!

Woolf Essay Prize 2023 by the University of Cambridge

Eligibility.

• Open to all women students currently in Year 12 (or equivalent)
• From any country or school
• Opportunity to explore women in literature, history, society, and culture
• Develop independent study and writing skills
• Book tokens: £300 for first prize, £200 for second prize, £100 for third prize
• Highly commended and commended certificates awarded
• Choose one of the provided questions
• Word count: 1,500 to 2,500 words (including footnotes and captions)
• Appropriate acknowledgment and citation of sources
• Include a bibliography (websites consulted excluded from word count)

About the Woolf Essay Prize

The Woolf Essay Prize is a prestigious competition organized by the University of Cambridge. It provides a platform for Year 12 women students worldwide to engage in critical thinking and writing about women's writing, history, studies, and the pursuit of gender equality. The competition aims to foster a deeper understanding of the role of women in literature, society, and culture while honing students' independent study and writing skills.

The Woolf Essay Prize draws inspiration from Virginia Woolf, a prominent figure in women's literature. In her seminal work, A Room of One's Own, Woolf raised essential questions about women's place in society, culture, and education. By participating in this competition, students have the opportunity to delve into these themes and ideas, following in the footsteps of a pioneering feminist writer.

Open to students studying English Literature, History, Politics, Philosophy, Sociology, or any other subject, the Woolf Essay Prize encourages a diverse range of perspectives and areas of interest. It provides aspiring scholars with a chance to showcase their analytical and writing abilities while engaging with important issues related to gender equality and women's studies.

Winners of the Woolf Essay Prize are awarded book tokens, with first prize receiving £300, second prize £200, and third prize £100. In addition to the top prizes, a select number of highly commended and commended certificates are also awarded to recognize outstanding submissions.

As the Woolf Essay Prize operates independently from the Essay Writing Masterclass Programme offered by the University, it is an exclusive opportunity for students to focus specifically on women's writing and history. By participating in this competition, high-achieving students gain exposure to the rigorous academic work expected at Cambridge University, inspiring them to consider further studies in higher education.

To participate, students must submit their essay by the specified deadline of 12pm GMT on Friday, 14th July 2023. Entries should be well-researched and thoughtfully written, addressing one of the provided essay questions. Sources must be properly acknowledged and cited, with a bibliography attached (excluded from the word count). The competition welcomes submissions from students of various backgrounds and academic interests.

For more information, including the list of essay questions, word limits, and submission details, please refer to the official Woolf Essay Prize 2023 Information and Questions document. If you have any queries or require further assistance, you can reach out to the organizers via email at [email protected].

The Woolf Essay Prize 2023, organized by the prestigious University of Cambridge, is currently open for submissions. This highly regarded competition invites Year 12 women students from around the world to explore the multifaceted role of women in literature, history, society, and culture. By participating, students have the opportunity to enhance their independent research and writing skills while engaging with critical topics such as women's writing, women's history, and gender equality. The competition welcomes entries from students studying diverse subjects, including English Literature, History, Politics, Philosophy, and Sociology. Notably, outstanding participants have the chance to win book tokens and receive highly commended and commended certificates. If you are a student passionate about feminism, education, and intellectual exploration, this is the perfect platform to showcase your talent. The submission deadline for the Woolf Essay Prize 2023 is the 14th of July, 2023.

Register Now in this Competition!

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Home » College Counselling

Independent schools shut out of Cambridge essay prizes

Newnham College has said its essay prizes will now only be open to state-educated sixthformers

By Irena Barker . 23 May 2022

2 minute read

A women-only Cambridge college has blocked independently educated sixth formers from entering an essay competition, The Times reports .

Newnham College, which previously accepted entries from female students in private schools, said its essay prizes were now being run as an “outreach educational activity” limited to students in state schools only.

The college said that the competition had become so popular, marking the essays was taking up too many resources.

The news comes after Lord Black of Brentwood criticised Oxbridge colleges for “social engineering” in their attempts to raise the proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Former independent school head Bernard Trafford also recently wrote about the dangers of “crudely defining university applicants by their school or postcode.”

The Newnham essay prizes, offer a £400 first prize in each category, with £200 for second and £100 for third. The money is split equally between the writer and their school.

This year’s subjects included philosophy, music, medicine, maths, history, engineering, computer science, classics, biological sciences, archaeology and the Woolf essay prize, named after Virginia Woolf.

David James, deputy head at Lady Eleanor Holles School, an independent girls’ school in southwest London, said: “These colleges seem to be assuming in designing these rather blunt criteria that if you are taught in a state school you are going to be educated to a lower standard than [at] a private school, and special considerations have to be applied. This is unproven and insulting. Ultimately, these colleges are discriminating against young people who had no choice over the schools they attend.”

A college spokeswoman said: “Because of resource constraints, the college [decided] to provide the essay prize as an outreach educational activity for students in the maintained sector, which has felt the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic significantly, and which is less resourced as a whole. This will allow us to offer detailed feedback on a university-style essay to the entrants.”

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The Woolf Essay Competition 2023 by University of Cambridge [Exciting Prizes]: Submit by July 14

• Priyanka Barik
• May 23, 2023

Submissions are invited for The Woolf Essay Competition 2023 by University of Cambridge. The last date of submission is July 14, 2023.

About the University

The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. 

Competition Details

The Woolf Essay Competition is open to all women students currently in Year 12 (or equivalent), from any country or school. It is designed to give students the opportunity to think and write about  women in literature, history, society and culture, while developing their independent study and  writing skills.

Through exposure to the type of work they might be expected to do at Cambridge, high flying students will be encouraged to consider applying to the University – and hopefully to  Newnham, where women’s history and educational excellence are, of course, central.  

This competition may be of particular interest to those studying English Literature, History, Politics,  Philosophy or Sociology; but entries from interested students studying any combination of subjects are welcomed.

Essay Questions

• She had to work on equal terms with men. She made, by working very hard, enough to live  on. The importance of that fact outweighs anything that she actually wrote, […]”.  

Discuss the significance of the struggle for financial independence and equality on the place of  women in academia or any other profession, either historical or contemporary.

• “It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men […] considering the vastness and  variety of the world, how should we manage with one [sex] only? ”  

Using at least two examples, discuss the impact and value of the voices of women and/or gender non-conforming individuals to the literary world.  

•   “The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than  the story of that emancipation itself”. 

Analyse the role and responsibility of men in combatting gender inequality in a specific place and  historical period. 

The Woolf Essay Competition will have book tokens as prizes (£300 for first prize, £200 for second  prize, and £100 for third prize, with a small number of highly commended and commended  certificates also awarded).  

How to Submit?

Interested participants can submit their essays online via this link .

Submission Deadline

The last date of submission is July 14, 2023.

Email: essayprizes[at]newn[dot]cam[dot]ac[dot]uk

Click here to view the official notification for The Woolf Essay Competition 2023 by University of Cambridge.

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Woolf Essay Prize 2023

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Announcing the Winners of the First William Kessler Essay Prize Competition

18th December 2020

The Woolf Institute is delighted to announce the winners of the first William Kessler Essay Prize Competition: Sophia Bor and Holland Freeman.

Sophia Bor wrote about 'Secular Societies, Religious Followers; Opportunities? Challenges?' Read Sophia's piece on the Woolf Institute Blog here .

Holland Freeman wrote on 'Religious Studies Education: Interfaith Collaboration in the Classroom and Beyond'. Holland's piece can also be read on the Woolf Institute Blog here .

Each winner will receive £250. Congratulations to Sophia and Holland!

We thank the Kessler family for making this prize possible.

The future’s bright: winners announced for 2019 Essay Prize competition

Is fiction like a spider’s web? How would you treat a robot explorer on Mars? Is patriotism a virtue, or a vice? How can screen use affect relationships? and which living woman biologist would you nominate for a Nobel prize? Just a selection of the questions explored by some of the UK’s most talented Year 12 students, demonstrating intellect and creativity in their answers.

Newnham College’s annual essay prize competitions are designed to encourage ambitious female sixth-form students to explore university-level subjects and themes and to develop their independent research and writing skills.

A record-breaking number of entries were received from a wide range of schools across ten different categories: Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Engineering, History, Modern and Medieval Languages, Music, Philosophy, Physical Sciences, Psychological & Behavioural Sciences and the Woolf Essay Prize, with questions inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own . Virginia Woolf based A Room of One’s Own on a series of lectures she gave at Newnham in 1928.

Winners were selected by a panel of Newnham academics after hundreds of essays were received. Each competition has a prize of £400 for first place, £200 for second place, and £100 for third place.

All of the winners were invited to the women’s college at the heart of Cambridge University to take part in a special ceremony where they were presented with their prizes by Professor Dame Carol Black, Principal of Newnham College. The sixth-formers and their families then enjoyed afternoon tea and a chance to meet leading academics from all disciplines.

Dr Sam Lucy, Newnham Admissions Tutor, said “It is always inspiring to see the extremely high-quality work produced by the entrants to our Essay Prize competitions. All our prize-winners should be very proud of their achievement in a very competitive field. We hope that the academic freedom offered by the format confirms to them that the teaching on offer at Cambridge will suit them, and that they have the potential to thrive here if they go on to make an application, and hopefully consider Newnham if they do.”

It is hoped that exposing the high-flying sixth-formers to the type of work they would be expected to do at Cambridge will encourage them to consider applying to Newnham. Although it is not part of the admissions process at Newnham, several previous prize-winners are current students.

Questions for the 2020 Essay Prize Competitions will be announced in November 2019.

Read more about the 2019 questions and categories and the entries from the winners.

The full list of 2019 Essay Prize Winners/Highly Commended/Commended:

The Woolf Essay Prize 1st Prize: Ariana Rubio 2nd Prize: Hollie Noble Joint 3rd Prize: Naomi McKeown, Clara Wittmann Highly Commended: En-rei Soon, Jess Steadman Commended: Lydia Fontes, Eleanor Grossel, Saira Nabi, Lottie Swainston

The Computer Science Essay Prize 1st Prize: Chloe Wong 2nd Prize: Celeste à Brassard 3rd Prize: Verity Powell

The Engineering Essay Prize 1st Prize: Emma Allen 2nd Prize: Deborah Smith 3rd Prize: Natalie Tsang Highly Commended: Sonya Kalsi, Ella Lord, Katie Young Commended: Hannah Landsman, Katy Nicol, Clarissa Pereira, Dulcie Turner

The History Essay Prize 1st Prize: Francoise Dyer 2nd Prize: Kirsty Tennant Joint 3rd Prize: Ines Mubgar-Spencer, Ava Smith Highly Commended: Shaima Begum, Stella Horrell, Ruby Levy, Flora McIntyre

The Modern and Medieval Languages Essay Prize Joint 1st Prize: Emily Coatsworth, Natasha Festenstein 2nd Prize: Giulia Moretti 3rd Prize: Katie Pruden Highly Commended: Lucy Allan-Jones, Kitty Liu Commended: Vidhi Kohli, Izzy Lepine, Niamh Sayers, Xyla Taufaniska

The Music Essay Prize 1st Prize: Jemma Jeffery 2nd Prize: Evie Press 3rd Prize: Ella Jackson

The Philosophy Essay Prize 1st Prize: Sharon Chau

The Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Essay Prize 1st Prize: Georgia Hewett 2nd Prize: Michi Aneez 3rd Prize: Melissa Adams Highly Commended: Kathryn Beck

The Weston-Smith Physical Sciences Essay Prize 1st Prize: Holly MacDonald Joint 2nd Prize: Shannon Clark, Helena King Highly Commended: Louise Blackman, Isabelle Goddard, Simran Iswaran, Olivia Sutton, Helen Underwood Commended: Jennifer Hardwick, Rosa King, Madeleine Vince

The Biological Sciences Essay Prize Joint 1st Prize: Clodagh Bottomley, Alexandra O’Callaghan Joint 3rd Prize: Catherine Coffey, Isabella Woodward Highly Commended: Madeleine Boardman, Siyuan Song