The Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s College are pleased to be offering a prize, worth up to £500, for the best essays submitted by a pupil who, at the closing date, has been in the Sixth Form of a state-funded school or college for a period of not more than two years. Candidates are required to write an essay in response to one of these three questions:
Philosophy
Suppose technology advanced to such an extent that brain transplants became possible and someone else’s brain was implanted into your body, while yours was implanted into theirs. Would you emerge from this process with a new brain, or with a new body? Or would neither of these descriptions of the situation be correct?
Politics
Can we design democratic institutions that take into account the full preferences of the majority and where group decision-making is stable and where the process satisfies minimal conditions of fairness?
Economics
Recent years have seen an active public debate on the merits and costs of wealth taxes. What problems (if any) could a wealth tax solve and what are the expected economic costs of such a tax?
Entries should be 2,000 – 4,000 words in length, and are to be submitted as a Microsoft Word document, together with the Kavita Singh Prize cover sheet, through the online form on this page.
The closing date for entries is 5pm (GMT) on Friday 28th July 2023.
Prize winners will be announced online by the end of September.
Please direct any enquiries to outreach@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk
Students entering this competition might be interested in the following undergraduate courses offered at St Hugh’s College: PPE, History and Politics, Philosophy and Modern Languages, PPL (Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics), Economics and Management, Computer Science and Philosophy, Mathematics and Philosophy.
Kavita Singh Submissions Form
Please use this form to upload your submission for the Kavita Singh Competition. Please do not forget to upload the Cover Sheet with your submission.