We’re delighted to announce the winners of The Nation’s sixth annual Student Writing Contest!

This year we asked students to send us an original, unpublished, 800-word essay detailing what they think is the most important issue facing their generation. We received hundreds of submissions from high school and college students in forty-one states. We chose one college and one high school winner and ten finalists total.

Congratulations to the winners, Bryce Wilson Stucki, an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, and Hannah Moon, a 2011 graduate of Brooklyn College Academy in Brooklyn, New York, and to our ten finalists! The winners each receive a cash award of $1,000; the finalists receive $200 each. All receive Nation subscriptions.

Many thanks to all of our applicants and the many people who encouraged their participation, and many apologies for our delay in naming the winners. The two winning essays will be excerpted in an upcoming issue of The Nation magazine and all finalists will be published at StudentNation on Monday, December, 5.

Winners

Bryce Wilson Stucki, Virginia Tech Hannah Moon, Brooklyn College Academy, Brooklyn, NY

Finalists

College Zoe Carpenter, Vassar College Alex Klein, Yale University Matthew Hickson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Melanie Muller, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Jake Shoemaker, Dartmouth College

High School Ashley Arkhurst, Manlius Pebble Hill School, DeWitt, NY Sakib Ahmed, Herricks High School, Manhasset, NY Conor Beck, South Portland High School, S. Portland, ME Kevin Xiong, Cambridge Rindge & Latin, Cambridge, MA Stephanie Weiner, Spanish River Community High School, Boca Raton, FL