Modern Love College Essay Contest

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/style/modern-love-college-essay-contest.html

Version 0 of 1.

This past February, just after Valentine’s Day, we asked college students nationwide to tell us the truth about what love is like for them today. We are pleased to present the best of that writing here, leading off with our winning entry by Kyleigh Leddy, a senior at Boston College. Many writers explored how technology and social media can both enable and frustrate emotional attachment, but none carried greater weight and poignancy than Ms. Leddy’s essay about her missing older sister.

Our other finalists tackled a wide range of subjects, from wrestling with hoarding and body image to rejecting oppressive masculine codes of behavior. This year’s contest also featured a variety of 100-word dispatches from college students around the world in our Tiny Love Stories column.

Congratulations to Ms. Leddy and our other top finishers (listed below), and our gratitude to all who participated. Thanks, as well, to contest readers Katherine Hu, Danya Issawi and Alexandra Petri. — Daniel Jones and Miya Lee

Winner

Kyleigh Leddy, Boston College

Finalists

Ricardo Jaramillo, Brown University

James Lee, Brown University

Meaghan Mahoney, Columbia University

Karina Manta, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs

Honorable Mention

Amaris Ramey, Georgia Gwinnett College

Paige Resnick, University of Chicago

Samantha Resnick, Pomona College

Veronica Suchodolski, Barnard College

Sahana Thirumazhusai, Carnegie Mellon University

Notable Essays

Avital Balwit, University of Virginia

Eliza Browning, Wheaton College

Kelsang Dolma, Yale University

Morgan Florsheim, Brown University

Sarah Haeckel, Colgate University

Sarah Lieberman, Cornell University

Cole Martin, University of Chicago

Cadence Neenan, Tulane University

Abey Philip, Yale University

Lily Robinson, Middlesex Community College

Kate Scherzinger, Notre Dame

Sara Stanworth, Utah Valley University

Kate Tinney, UC Berkeley

Patrick Wigent, Carleton College

Qianqian Yang, Harvard College