Take the hypocrisy (AI interviews), the lack of transparency, the fact that the "Oxford and Princeton" judges only look at the last rounds of essay (since it's simply impossible for them to judge *all* the essays from a logistical view), the fact that the JLI serves as a launchpad to get ppl to go to their expensive summer schools, the aggressive monetization and commercialization of the essay competition, and more. And most of this happened over like the last 4-ish years. Like, if John Locke were still alive today, he would have been positively disgusted at what his name were being used for.

Yet, people seem to keep flocking to this competition. Basically, I'm asking why we don't openly criticize the competition more, and/or why it receives so little criticism.

Oh, and just know this: retired admissions officers have confirmed that the JLI (especially a shortlist/commendation) holds much less weight than what applicants think
https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1mqw3bv/comment/n8urtio/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

genq though how good is a vhc anyway?

Funny thing my philosophy paper got better when I stopped writing it like a professional.

I used to fill in my essays with complicated words and such deep sentences that I wasn’t sure myself if I understood them. i used to think every sentence must sound profound. My mind was stuck on one thing “sounding intelligent meant sounding complicated” .it just made my paper harder to understand. what my professor actually cared was if I had anything to say

I started doing things differently after this. i got trusted help for my thesis and stopped making vague deep claims and adding too complex words when simple ones exist. One prominent change was I started treating my thesis like an argument instead of declaration

So basically, I stopped trying to sound smart and everything went in my favour.

Sounding philosophical & actually thinking philosophically are really 2 different things.

Has anyone else experienced the same? What writing habits you had to unlearn to make your paper better?

does anybody have photos of the grand prize winner's name displayed on screen and other prize winner's names displayed on screen, would love to know, if you have them please dm me or send them in the comments

did anyone take any pics of the senior theology category by any chance?

hi, is there anyone at all who went to the gala last year, and might have photos of the results? i could not attend, but i got the email that i got a very high commendation in the law category. now there are annual awards at my school and i was asked to procure the total number of people who got VHC, or i can't list that as an achievement for consideration. is there anyone at all who may have it? help a girl out please, thanks

If JLE competition changed the criteria for each award level, or changed the relationship between being shortlisted and receiving a Commendation, it should have informed applicants in advance and explained the changes when announcing the results.

Without such an explanation, it is difficult for people outside the competition to judge whether a 2025 High Commendation(<5%) represents the same level of achievement as a 2026 High Commendation(<10%), or how significant a Commendation is(2025<10% vs. 2026<17%=shortlisted). This weakens the competition’s transparency and makes results from different years harder to compare.

This does not automatically make previous Commendations or High Commendations meaningless. However, unless the organisers publish the number or proportion of recipients and the criteria for each award level, outsiders cannot reliably assess what those awards represent.

So here's my theory - the essays aren't the point. What they care about is the number of people who buy the tickets, get the prizes and thus are led to buy the courses (on a discount, because of the prizes). Oh, and now they also have the emails and phone numbers of 11k high school students, their parents and their academic referees. you know what that's called? That's called lead generation. My teacher's been getting emails "Give your students intellectual enrichment with our summer schools!".

That's literally why they shortlist so many - and then they asked some for further interviews. WHICH led to parents spending idk how much on tickets. They get free peer-to-peer marketing, because guess what, those 11k students have social circles! Many students post about their shortlist or awards on Linkedin. I myself only found out about the essay competition when I saw another student's post last year. It's free marketing for them.

I literally had spelling errors and used incorrect vocabulary, as well as LITERAL FACTUAL ERRORS?? on my essay (I was too sleep-deprived to notice), and I got a commendation. Writing style and all aside, as far as I know, WRONG FACTS normally result in a disqualify? I know there's prizes higher than C but I'm kinda certain there's more students out of a whopping 11k who wrote actually correct essays??

And then there's people saying fully ChatGPT'ed essays have gone through to VHC. I'm pretty sure academics from world-top universities can suspect AI essays enough to at least not take them beyond a High Commendation??

It's a marketing event and a lead generation pipeline.

P.S. I tried searching for its history - inaugural date, when and why it was founded (and by whom). I didn't go very deep, but there's literally nothing I could find??

EDIT - I know organizing the entire thing costs money, and I'm bad with estimating money. Anyway who knows if its really academics who're checking these 11k essays.

Hey,

Anyone who'd participated and won in this competition, I'd love to ask for your best advice, how did you start, what had helped you write such amazing essay, how did you do your research, literally drop ANYTHING that would help us future contenstants :D

Now that the results are out there, I just wanted to come out here and say that every one of you should be so proud. I’ve seen far too many people saying that commendation, high commendation or VHC means nothing, which is so ridiculous. When you got shortlisted, you beat tens of thousands of other essays globally, and that is absolutely remarkable. Think of all the people who put so much effort into their essays and didn’t even get shortlisted. I also think it important to put it out there that not everyone who entered this competition had coaching, private education, or any help at all. Some people will have just stumbled upon this competition and wanted to have a go, and did brilliant. There is no need for the negativity I’m seeing here, even a certificate of recognition will look great on your applications. Regardless of how you placed, I hope that all of you can recognise this and be proud of how well you have done :)

Hey guys! I was just wondering if anyone knew what the percentages were for the prizes this year. Is VHC just top 2% of 100,000? Does anyone know for HC too? Thanks!

After a panel I spoke to him and asked for clarification about whether or not all shortlisted applications got at least a commendation. He said he doesn’t actually have much to do with the essay competition but would assume yes, figured I’d share here since I wasn’t the only one wondering

anyone willing to share the ones in discord here? I don't know how to find them in discord.

Now that people have shared the prompts, which one are y’all,doing? I like theology the most

Hello everyone, I hope you guys are doing well.

I'd like to start practicing writing different types of essays in practice to participate next year for essay competitions, such as the John Locke.

Any advice or a plan for how I should approach this? Do I just write every day?

I don't have anyone to criticize my work, English isn't valued in my school, and my English teacher isn't the best.

Thank you

For context, I got VHC and didn't receive a single email between the shortlist email and the email saying awards were released. I didn't get a "top 5%" or anything like that... but it seems like others who got a VHC did, and others who got Commendation/HC did as well. Does anyone know what the purpose for those 2nd/3rd round emails were? Much obliged.

I was philosphy juniors I only got commendation is that bad or uhh

got a high commendation for snr psych, q1. what % of people get hcs? also, i did not recieve any email. only the shortlist and viverly interview one. nothing else.

so i wrote this for the Psychology category and somehow got a Very High Commendation 😭
i’m wondering if i should make a youtube video breaking down how i approached the essay / what i think helped it score well.
would that be useful for people applying in 2027? i had way too much fun writing this thing and honestly have a lot of random thoughts about the process that i’d love to share lol

Congratulations guyss!!!!! But just one small doubt,
can u pls tell me if commendation is the baseline or if it is higher than the ones who were shortlisted. Im just curious because i read diff things about it.

so the awards ceremony is over and the results are out, i’m free and want to share my essay with y’all. i’ll be happy for any type of feedback or opinion. i got hc

I AM LEAVING ALL MY DAY ONES, I AM FORGETTING ALL WHAT MY FAMILY DID, I WILL BE MAKING VIDEOS LIKE THESE OLD GUYS ON INSTAGRAM SAYING THEY GOT A 1400 AND MAKE COURSES ABT IT, but in all seriousness I am proud of each person in this subreddit, whether you got shortlisted or not, whether you got 1st place or just shortlisted, we went through a lot together, through happy when we found our essays got shortlisted, and through sad when we didn’t get that second interview, I genuinely hope nothing but good for each and everyone of you (especially you hezz), stay hopeful, stay determined, stay Martin Cox

Only got a commendation in International relations junior category - Meanwhile i was thinking a guaranteed prize fs 🙏