Reuters/Brian Snyder    We’re delighted to announce the winners of The Nation’s seventh 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This year we asked students to send us an original, unpublished, 800-word essay detailing what they think is the most important issue of Election 2012. We received close to 1,000 submissions from high school and college students in forty-two states. We chose one college and one high school winner and five finalists from each category. The contest was open to all matriculating high school students and undergraduates at American schools, colleges and universities.

Congratulations to the winners, Andrew Giambrone, an undergraduate at Yale University who wrote about the human costs of unemployment and argued that the economic crisis is also an existential catastrophe, and Tess Saperstein, a junior at Dreyfoos School of the Arts in Boca Raton, Florida, who elegantly limned Susan B. Anthony’s contemporary legacy. The winners each receive a cash award of $1,000; the finalists receive $200 each. All receive lifetime Nation subscriptions.

Many thanks to all of our applicants and the many people who encouraged their participation. Please read and share the winning essays. The two winners will be excerpted in an upcoming issue of The Nation magazine and all finalists are published at StudentNation.

Winners Andrew Giambrone, Yale University Tess Saperstein, Dreyfoos School of the Arts, Boca Raton, Florida

College Finalists Guido Girgenti, Occidental College Erik Lampmann, University of Richmond Alex Ritter, Baylor University Gabriel Schivone, Pima Community College Helen Yang, Princeton University

High-School Finalists Nikolas Angelopoulos, Polytechnic High School, Pasadena, California Kathryn Davis, Claremont High School, Claremont, California Ethan Evans, South Warren High School, Bowling Green, Kentucky Kristy Hong, Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, Massachusetts Audrey Yu, Booker T. Washington High School, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Meet last year’s winners!