Can Tutoring Help with the John Locke Essay Competition? And is it Good Preparation for College?
And is it Good Preparation for College?
The John Locke Essay Competition is one of the most prestigious academic writing contests for middle school and high school students. Every year, thousands of students from around the world compete for recognition and prizes.
Parents and students often ask two key questions:
- Can tutoring help students succeed in the John Locke Essay Competition?
- Is preparing for this competition good practice for college?
As a writer with a long history of contest participation as well as a tutor who has mentored many students on contest preparation through courses designed around Scholastic and John Locke, I can confidently say that the answer to both questions is yes.
With the right guidance and preparation, students can build powerful writing and research skills that help them both in the competition and in future college-level work.
What is the John Locke Essay Competition?
The John Locke Essay Competition is an international academic contest for students under age 18. It’s run by the John Locke Institute and focuses on subjects such as philosophy, politics, economics, history, law, and psychology.
Students choose one question from a subject category and write an essay answering it. The prompts are designed to test critical thinking and argument skills rather than simple knowledge. They give nuanced and difficult questions.
For example, here are a few questions from this year:
- If legislators and judges all accepted the philosophical theory of determinism, what would be the effect on criminal sentencing?
- Should a coalition of countries (or of billionaires) run an experiment with a libertarian microstate?
- Did the pandemic normalize authoritarianism?
- Why do we care what happens to our body after death?
- ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ Is it? Does it?
The competition is named after John Locke, the famous philosopher whose ideas about liberty, government, and natural rights influenced modern democratic societies.
Judges are looking for essays that show the following:
- clear arguments
- logical reasoning
- nuanced thinking
- thoughtful research
- original ideas
- persuasive academic writing
In other words, students must think like young philosophers and scholars.
How Competitive Is the John Locke Essay Competition?
The John Locke Essay Competition is known for being highly competitive.
It’s one of the most prestigious writing prizes bestowed on a young writer.
Each year, thousands of students from top schools across the world submit essays. Only a small percentage of essays are shortlisted, and an even smaller group receives prizes, which include scholarship money and a trip to Oxford, England.
And the competition is getting steeper every year.
In 2025, 63,000 candidates entered: there were 25 winners across subject and junior categories. There were also runners up in each category. In total, there were around 100 recognized students.
To compare, in 2023, 19,000 candidates entered with 100 recognized students.
Because of this, many students take the competition very seriously, looking for mentorship when preparing their essays.
Success in the competition usually requires more than strong grammar. Students must learn how to develop an argument, analyze complex questions, and structure a persuasive essay of the highest caliber.
How Tutoring Can Help with the John Locke Essay Competition
Tutoring can play a valuable role in helping students prepare for the John Locke Essay Competition.
Unlike typical school assignments, these essays ask students to explore difficult philosophical and political ideas. A tutor can help students break down these questions and develop a strong response.
Here are several ways tutoring can help:
Understanding the Essay Question & Brainstorming
Many prompts are broad and abstract. Tutors help students interpret the question and narrow it into a clear thesis while brainstorming different ways to look at the argument and various avenues of research.
Building Strong Arguments
Students learn how to support their ideas using logic, evidence, and examples.
Improving Essay Structure
Tutors help students organize their essays with clear introductions, strong body paragraphs, and effective conclusions.
Navigating the Research Process
Tutors can provide guidance — and often access — to scholarly databases to find the strongest, peer-reviewed sources. Furthermore, tutors can read sources with students to help them understand it or highlight key ideas.
Providing Detailed Feedback
One of the most valuable parts of tutoring is receiving feedback during the writing process. Students can revise their work repeatedly and strengthen their arguments before submitting the final essay.
As I always say to my students, writing is revision. You’re not really writing until you’re meticulously revising.
In this way, tutoring acts as a form of academic mentorship, helping students grow as thinkers and writers.
Is the John Locke Essay Competition Good Preparation for College?
Preparing for the John Locke Essay Competition is excellent preparation for college-level writing, and it looks wonderful on resumes.
In college, students are expected to analyze complex ideas and support their arguments with research. The competition teaches these same skills.
Students also practice important academic habits, including:
- conducting research
- organizing ideas
- revising drafts
- meeting deadlines
These are the same skills needed for successful college essays and research papers.
But there are deeper benefits to engaging in a competition like this as a young academic or writer as well:
- Sharpening skills of working towards a real, high stakes goal.
- Building confidence and resilience — learn to handle challenges, including disappointment.
- Receiving feedback that helps you grow as a writer and thinker in the future.
- Sharpening your mind as you wrestle with difficult subjects and creatively strive for excellence.
- Meeting, reading, and debating with other thinkers to refine your ideas.
- Completing and submitting a polished piece=an accomplishment to be proud of.
Participating in the competition can also help students stand out in college applications by showing intellectual curiosity and initiative.
Why the Experience Matters Even If Students Don’t Win
While winning a prize is exciting, the true value of the John Locke Essay Competition goes far beyond awards and has deeper meaning.
For a young writer, this is what it means to participate in a contest regardless of outcome:
- It means you’ve engaged in rigorous intellectual work on your journey to becoming an intellectual and academic.
- It means you’ve completed more than the majority of people your age or older ever do.
- It means you deserve a medal of courage.
- It means you’ve not been passive about your world and its problems. You’ve engaged in the conversations, which are the first step to changing the world.
- It means you’re practicing for the type of rigorous work you’ll do in college.
- It means your brain is growing and developing.
- It means you have a statistically better chance at winning future contests.
- It means you have a rich inner life rather than simple brain rot or hive mind.
- It means you tried…and that matters! Many never do.
Even students who do not place in the competition often come away with stronger writing skills and greater academic confidence.
In many cases, the experience helps students discover a love for deeper intellectual exploration, and they always learn about interesting topics from the experience.
That growth can be just as valuable as winning.
Finding the Right Support
For students who want guidance while preparing for the competition, working with experienced tutors can make the process more rewarding and productive.
The tutors at Jamie the Scholar include award-winning creative writing instructors who specialize in helping students develop strong and compelling writing.
Our mentorship approach has helped many students refine their writing skills, and we have a track record of students producing prize-winning work in competitive contests.
With the right preparation, the John Locke Essay Competition becomes more than a contest. It becomes an opportunity for students to develop the critical thinking, research, and writing skills that will serve them well in college and throughout their academic careers.
Visit jamiethescholar.com or call us at 888-577-3224 for a free consultation to get started