Kaplan and Newsweek Award $15,000 to Winners of the 14th Annual "My Turn" High School Essay Competition

Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions and Newsweek magazine have announced the winners of the 14th Annual "My Turn” Essay Competition, a national contest that recognizes talented young writers. Submissions from twenty teens representing 14 different states across the country earned winners’ status. To help evaluate the essays and award $15,000 to the top winners, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions and Newsweek assembled a panel of accomplished writers and journalists, including Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and New Yorker poetry editor Paul Muldoon and Newsweek senior editor and NBC News contributor Jonathan Alter. In her winning essay, "Only Two Hands,” Castle Rock, Colorado teen Katy Hoyer describes how the soothing sounds of her piano playing may have saved the life of a dear friend. Katy, who is entering her junior year at Castle View High School, will be awarded $5,000 as the first-place winner. A passionate musician, she plays the violin in the school orchestra and sings and plays piano for the choir. Her long-term education goal is to achieve a doctorate in music. The second-place winner, Esha Khurana of West Chester, Pennsylvania, earned a $2,000 prize with her moving essay "Sixteen Years,” in which she describes how a routine night as a volunteer EMT turned into a life lesson as important as any homework assignment. Esha will be the editor-in-chief for Henderson High School’s newspaper, The Warrior, when she begins her senior year this fall. She plans to study medicine and journalism in college. Eight additional winners, hailing from seven different states around the country, will be awarded $1,000. Winning essay topics included: an eye-opening visit to a high school for incarcerated students; living with a father who has AIDS; how one student sees being "Deaf” as a culture, not a disability; connecting with a grandfather through routine activities; gaining perspective on life while having a father serving in Iraq; working with a child who has a severe learning disability; how to overcome depression; and braving icy waters to raise money for charity. Ten additional students earned an honorable mention for their essays and each will receive a free Kaplan SAT or ACT classroom course. Open to all high school students, the essay competition was created in 1994 to help students meet the rising costs of college and to offer a forum for expressing their points of view. Since then, this forum has provided tens of thousands of students with the opportunity to share their dreams, struggles, observations, and questions as they confront challenges on their paths to adulthood. This year’s distinguished judges for the competition included: Jonathan Alter, author of The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope; senior editor, Newsweek; contributing correspondent, NBC News Joie Jager-Hyman, author of the college admissions book, Fat Envelope Frenzy Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, poetry editor for The New Yorker and chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University Rob Simmelkjaer, anchor/correspondent for ABC News Now; vice president of corporate projects, ESPN Jennie Yabroff, associate editor, Newsweek The 2008 Kaplan/Newsweek "My Turn” Essay contest winners are:   Katy Hoyer, Castle Rock, CO (first-place) Brian Byrnes, Mukilteo, WA Esha Khurana, West Chester, PA (second-place) Katherine Bredholt, San Antonio, TX Emma Wisniewski, Astoria, NY Olivia Johnston, Kennewick, WA Alice Phillips, Charleston, SC Kelly Miller, Palos Verdes Estates, CA Rosanna Kim, Gaithersburg, MD Charlotte McDonald, Portland, ME Honorable Mention recognition goes to:   Malcolm Leo Ladines, Plano, TX Daniel Soler, Vorhees, NJ Audrey Johnston, South Strafford, VT Emily Bair, Newburgh, IN Michelle Bosley, Owasso, OK Joseph Lomas, Marlton, NJ Jasmine Segall, Davis, CA Jiayi Kong, The Woodlands, TX Zimeg Gao, Millburn, NJ Colton Brooks, Indian Springs, AL For more information, visit www.kaptest.com/myturn. About Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (www.kaptest.com), a division of Kaplan, Inc., is a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Established in 1938, Kaplan is the world leader in the test prep industry. With a comprehensive menu of online offerings and a complete array of books and software, Kaplan offers preparation for more than 90 standardized tests, including entrance exams for secondary school, college and graduate school, as well as English language and professional licensing exams. Kaplan also provides private tutoring and college and graduate admissions consulting services. About Newsweek Founded in 1933, Newsweek provides comprehensive coverage of national and international affairs, business, culture, science and technology, and arts and entertainment. Headquartered in New York, Newsweek has 20 bureaus located in the U.S. and around the globe. In addition to its U.S. edition, Newsweek publishes three English-language editions overseas and is the only news magazine with six weekly local-language editions—in Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Polish, Arabic Chinese and Russian. Newsweek’s worldwide circulation is more than 3.5 million and a total readership of more than 21 million. The magazine appears in more than 190 countries. Newsweek holds more National Magazine Awards, given by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), than any other newsweekly. Newsweek.com, launched in Oct. 1998, offers daily news updates, Web-only columns from Newsweek’s top writers, photo galleries, audio and video reports from correspondents, podcasts, mobile content and archives as well as all content from the weekly print edition. The site has won more than 20 awards since 2002 and has been nominated twice for a National Magazine Award. Note to editors: Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO)