Entrants for the the Phyliss J. McCarthy Scholarship for Excellence in Writing may choose from the three writing prompts and respond in 2000 words or fewer to compete for a grand prize of $1,000 to help with college application costs, test-taking fees, college visits, or first-year college expenses. Applicants must be high school juniors or seniors. This is open to both domestic and international students. Submissions must be the student's original work and not published elsewhere.
To apply for this scholarship, applicants must respond to one of the following prompts: narrative; meta; or wacky. You may choose to include your secret message (or a hint to it) in the 'Anything you'd like to add?' box in the submission form. Towards the beginning of August, a grand prize scholarship winner and two runners up will be announced, and (pending author approval) their stories will be featured on the Learncurious website and blog.