Deadline: March 2, 2026
Eligibility: Open to all current 9 - 11th grade students.
Submission Process: To register and submit an essay, please write an essay using the prompt and complete the below form. For questions, please email summerscholars@ncf.edu.
Prompt: Modern computer science, physics and mathematics are more and more intimately intertwined at the forefront of scientific innovation, as witnessed for instance by the emerging field of quantum computing. At New College of Florida, we celebrate scientific innovation and offer students the opportunity to explore connected ideas from various scientific perspectives. For this essay of up to 1500 words, choose one of your favorite scientists from the field of mathematics, physics or computer science and present highlights of their story. Then, focus on one of their marquee results. The more you are able to explain the result, the better. What do you find appealing about that discovery? How did it impact society, perhaps even to this day?
Here are a few of the many examples you might consider: Ada Lovelace, Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, Shafi Goldwasser, James Clerk Maxwell, Lise Meitner, Paul Dirac, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Sophie Germain and Joseph Fourier.
Selection Process: Students will have their essays evaluated by a team of professors and staff at New College. Selected students will be invited to participate in an on-campus residential summer camp at New College of Florida from Sunday, June 21st through Friday, June 26th, 2026. Your participation in the summer camp will determine the final winners of the Summer Scholars Program.
ALL Program campers will compete for scholarship prizes. Judges will select first, second, and third-prize winners as well as finalists, from across all summer camps. These winners will receive a cash prize listed below:
First Prize: $500
Second Prize: $250
Third Prize: $100
Five Finalists: $50 each
In addition, winners and finalists are eligible for full- or partial-tuition undergraduate college scholarships to attend New College. Qualified winners are those who apply, are admitted, and enroll at New College with grades and test scores meeting our scholarship criteria. We offer fully- and partially-funded scholarships.
Submission Guidelines/Process:
- Students do not need to have a sponsoring teacher to submit their work.
- Students do not need to have taken, or be enrolled in, any particular courses to enter the contest.
- Contest entries must be in English.
- Submissions must be in .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .rtf format and contain a cover page with the student's name, date of birth, high school, and submission genre. Google Docs are not accepted.