BB&N Announces Junior-Year English and History Paper Prize Winners
By: Sharon Krauss
The History and Social Sciences Department and the English Department have announced the winners of their junior-year writing prizes for essays written last winter and spring, respectively, and judged over the summer by panels of judges outside of BB&N.
Four BB&N seniors have received top honors in the annual Junior Profile Contest, the final event in the cornerstone English project for all eleventh-graders. The panel of judges—working writers and editors—has awarded first prize to Sarah Hirsch ’26, second prize to Ryan Clay ’26, and honorable mentions to Sadie Saarony ’26 and You-Yan Wang ’26.
The judges noted that of the 22 outstanding profiles in the pool, “At a time when the call for diversity has taken on fraught meaning, this collection of profiles demonstrates that BB&N students can bear witness to the lives of others, no matter how socioeconomically, intellectually, or politically different. They have accomplished this not only with impeccable neutrality, but also with heart.”
For 40 years, the Junior Profile project has challenged students to harness their practiced skills in analytical thinking and writing about literature and apply them to a human subject beyond the classroom walls. Over the course of six spring weeks, through several drafts, and with the ongoing feedback of their teachers, students produce an 8-to-10-paged New Yorker-style profile about the subject’s life work or a significant focus in that person’s life.
Among the professions depicted in this year’s pool of outstanding profiles are a guitar maker, a midwife, a potter, a teenage makeup artist, a sushi chef, a baker, a farm manager, a cheesemonger, a symphony conductor, a Disney princess, a food truck owner/athletic coach, and a firearms dealer.
All juniors also write a 2,200–3,600-word research paper on a topic of significance in United States history from 1491 to the present. The outside panel of judges awarded the U.S. History Paper first prize to Caroline Kovacs ’26, second prizes to Ella Botein ’26 and Lukas Wellesley ’26, and third prize to David Xiong ’26.
