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HONORS: Our mission is to provide a venue to recognize excellence in pre-collegiate writing to help motivate and launch the next-generation of scholars who seek to pursue the humanities at the undergraduate and possibly even the graduate (Masters or PhD level) in the future. Honors awards provide another opportunity for students to distinguish themselves as humanities scholars.
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SELECTIVITY: Honors awards represent around 5% of submissions on average, and selected honorees may be invited to apply for our Fellows Program, and we are gratified when our authors, fellows and winners and honorees are admitted to highly selective colleges and universities, many of which have made humanities-focused candidates an institutional priority in their admissions process.
HONOREE PRIZES: Prizes vary by level of honor and are included in the submission form. All finalists receive a Selection for Publication (SFP) invitation, which includes publication in The Palo Alto Scholar and the annual Compendium of Pre-Collegiate Humanities Scholarship, which is published as an e-book and print publication. All winners are eligible to receive free college admissions consulting services from our professional partners valued from $1000 and above, depending on honor level. No cash value, services only, must be used within 180 days of award.
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HONORS:
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PAS HUMANITIES SCHOLAR AWARD [OUR HIGHEST HONOR]
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PAS HUMANITIES PORTFOLIO AWARD (12TH GRADE/GAP YEAR ONLY)
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PAS RESEARCH-BASED ESSAY AWARD (3 CATEGORIES, longer, medium, shorter)
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PAS CRITICAL ESSAY AWARD
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PAS MEDIA REVIEW AWARD
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PAS LITERARY NON-FICTION AWARD
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PAS GALLERY ARTIST AWARD
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SELECTION PROCESS:
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AWARD #1: ALL STUDENTS WHO SUBMIT FOR PUBLICATION ARE AUTOMATICALLY CONSIDERED FOR THE HUMANITIES SCHOLAR AWARD AND WILL BE NOTIFIED OF ADDITIONAL SELECTION CRITERIA AND SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS FOR HONORS CONSIDERATION. THIS AWARD RECOGNIZES STUDENTS WHO HAVE DEVOTED THEMSELVES TO THE HUMANITIES IN THEIR STUDIES, EXTRACURRICULAR AND ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES. SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 15, 2021
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AWARD #2: ALL WORK SUBMITTED BY 12TH GRADE/GAP YEAR STUDENTS IS AUTOMATICALLY CONSIDERED FOR THE HUMANITIES PORTFOLIO AWARD. STUDENTS WHO ARE IN 12TH GRADE/GAP YEAR WILL BE NOTIFIED OF ADDITIONAL PORTFOLIO SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS FOR HONORS CONSIDERATION.
SUBMISSION DEADLINE IS SEPTEMBER 15, 2021
AWARDS #3-7: ALL WORK THAT IS SELECTED FOR PUBLICATION IS AUTOMATICALLY CONSIDERED FOR HONORS AWARDS IN THE APPLICABLE CATEGORY (3-6 ABOVE); TO APPLY FOR THIS AWARD, SUBMIT YOUR WORK FOR PUBLICATION IN THE APPLICABLE CATEGORY; NO FURTHER ACTION IS REQUIRED BY THE AUTHOR.
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2021 HONOREES WILL BE ANNOUNCED IN TWO CYCLES:
OCTOBER 15, 2021 (12th grade/gap year)
DECEMBER 31, 2021 (all others)
HONOREE RULES: ​All participants for Awards #1 and #2 must register to submit a honors application and receive and follow submission instructions, which includes requirements for the honors submissions as well as requirements for honorees to allow us to publish your winning entry on our site on a nonexclusive basis and use your name/likeness to publicize your winning entry.
FEE WAIVERS: There are fee waivers/reductions available, so please do not allow fees that you can't afford to be an obstacle in this process. Submit your work in Category 0 on the Submit Here page or send with your fee waiver request directly to editor@paloaltoscholar.com. Ability to pay is not a factor in the selection process.
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OPEN ACCESS MODEL: The scholarly academic community is in a period of transition from subscription to open-access journals because the public interest in making scholarship widely available has put pressure on academic publishing interests to change their traditional subscription=based business models. In this spirit, the Institute does not believe in putting your work behind a pay-wall subsidized by subscription access. Instead we hope that you will include links to your work in your online CV and that other scholars will read your work and as appropriate reference and cite your work, as a first step in developing your scholarly relevance and reputation. Therefore, we use the open-access business model for academic publishing in which your work is made publicly available to read under copyright license and our costs are subsidized by a submission fee to ensure you are sending us your very best work for our initial review and by an APC (Article Processing Cost) if your article is selected for article processing status to continue to the final article editing and preparation for publication. The APC fee subsidizes our costs in preparing, publishing and hosting your article as part of the Journal. There are fee waivers/reductions available, so please do not allow fees that you can't afford to be an obstacle in this process. No additional APC fee is required for honorees who are awarded for previously published work; APC fees for Awards #1 and #2 cover publication of newly awarded material. To read about APC fees, which are standard in the academic publishing industry for open-access journals, see for example the APC policies of PLOS and Elsevier. We also subsidize our costs by offering ancillary products and services apart from the Journal; these are separate and do not influence the article selection process.