Q. May I submit an essay written as a class assignment?

A. Yes. You are strongly encouraged to develop an essay you have written for school.

Q. Who is eligible for submission?

A. You must be in high school while writing the essay. For example, if you submit an essay in May of your senior year, your essay, if selected, might be published in the June, September, or December issue, possibly after you have gone to university.

Q. May I submit more than one essay?

A. Yes. Each submission requires a non-refundable fee of $180.

Q. What are relevant disciplines?

A. We publish essays written on topics in philosophy, history, art history, literature, politics, public policy, and sociology. However, many important academic inquiries often involve multiple fields of study across traditional academic disciplines. Essay topics and questions must be academic, answerable, and specific to be examined in a 5,000-word essay.

Examples of interdisciplinary topics

• ‘A work of art cannot be obscene, because anything that has a tendency to deprave or corrupt its audience thereby undermines its claims to be a work of art.’ Discuss.
• “…we will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientific psychology.” (Noam Chomsky) To what extent would you agree?

Examples of inappropriate topics

• What is justice? This question is too broad to be adequately examined within the length guideline.
• Can Ayurveda and allopathy work together? This topic would be suitable for a publication in health and medicine but not for a humanities and social sciences journal for high school students.
• How political relationships and economic motivations shaped the experiences of foreign-born NBA players? This topic would be appropriate for journalistic writing but not for academic writing. It has little relevance to scholarship in the humanities and social sciences or demand rigorous academic research.

Q. What are the selection criteria?

A. To be published in The Schola, an essay should meet several general criteria:

• The analysis is rigorous and the argument is logical;
• The essay is well-researched, using a variety of sources;
• The topic and/or findings are academically interesting.

All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staff. Submissions not meeting the manuscript requirements, including violations of academic integrity and publication ethics, are rejected promptly. Then a decision is made from among three possibilities:

• Accept, with or without revisions;
• Invite the author to revise and resubmit the manuscript before a final decision is reached; the invitation is made once and does not automatically lead to acceptance;
• Reject, typically on grounds of insufficient conceptual understanding or major analytical problems, lack of originality, insufficient general interest, or otherwise inappropriate.

Q. What is the acceptance rate?

A. The acceptance rate – the proportion of manuscripts chosen for publication from all submitted manuscripts – may seem straightforward. However, the publication process is more complex than that. We don’t disclose the acceptance rate due to various factors: Manuscripts are seldom accepted without revision; Submission quantities differ greatly among disciplines; Only one essay per discipline (or branch) is published to ensure a wide variety of topics are curated in each issue; Conditional acceptances are rescinded if revision fails to address editorial concerns; Both subpar and excellent manuscripts outside the journal’s scope are rejected. In short, the manuscript acceptance rate is neither a useful indicator of the publication process nor a valid measure of a journal’s rigor. You should be aware that the manuscript selection process differs from the university admissions process.

Q. May I resubmit my essay?

A. No. Once the submission process is complete, your submission is locked and you are NOT allowed to make changes to it. You may revise and resubmit your essay, only if you have been invited to do so.

Q. Who reviews the essays?

A. Our editors are academics teaching and researching in the humanities and social sciences.

Q. May I submit an essay longer than 5,000 words?

A. Ten percent over the 5,000-word limit is acceptable (5,500 words: excluding the abstract, footnotes, and bibliography). We advise that you are absolutely clear in what you aim to achieve within the length guideline. Writing concisely is crucial for any academic writer, especially when crafting a journal article. Avoid extending the paper unnecessarily because it won’t help it get published.

Q. I don’t have a PayPal account. My PayPal account does not comply with international regulations. What should I do?

A. Please contact us for alternative payment methods.

Q. Is there a deadline for submitting my work?

A. We accept essays year-round. Our best advice is to submit the manuscript as early as possible.

Q. How long does it take – to review, to get my essay published, to be notified of the decision, etc.?

A. A manuscript typically undergoes a 5-6 week journey from submission to final approval. The decision on a manuscript is reached within 2-3 weeks of submission. The author of a selected manuscript will be notified in that time frame. If you don’t hear from us, it is likely that your essay was not successful. Accepted manuscripts will be published in one of the forthcoming issues. For example, an essay submitted in July, if selected, will be published in the September, December, or March issue. If not selected, it will be permanently excluded from further consideration. We are unable to offer a specific timeline for submission and publication as the representation of disciplines and revision timelines are some of the many factors considered in the publication of each issue.