This is a strange year to apply to college, with the coronavirus raging and the economy in upheaval. If you happened to write an application essay about money, work or social class — whether about the pandemic or not — we’d like to read it, and perhaps publish it.
We’ve been issuing this call for your scribblings since 2013, when we started collecting piles of college application essays and publishing some of those we liked best or that struck us as unique. You can read the four that we published last year here, on topics including art, a blanket and a truck.
There are only a few rules: This must be an essay that you sent to at least one college as part of an application for undergraduate admission. It has to be from the current application season — if you’re already in college or are currently taking a gap year and applied last year, you’re not eligible. And again, the essay has to have something to do with money.
Please submit your essay to us using the form on this page by Monday, April 26. If you wrote more than one, please submit them separately. We plan to publish some of them later in the spring and pay the writers our normal freelance rate.