Junior Medha Swaminathan was one of 164 winners of the national Achievement Awards in Writing essay contest, receiving a Certificate for Superior Writing for an essay she submitted in January.

The contest, which is administered annually by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is for juniors nominated by their school. The number of nominees depends on the size of the school. Swaminathan was one of four Whitman students nominated.

“She was a really easy pick, just because she’s naturally a really good writer,” Swaminathan’s English teacher Matthew Bruneel said.

Each junior English teacher chose about five or six of their students to write an essay for the preliminary round of the contest. A panel of English teachers and composition assistants then narrowed the pool of 30 students down to four: juniors Rebecca Rahman, Scott Singer, Nadia Spira and Swaminathan.

For this year’s prompt, students were given a quote from Robert F. Kennedy about racist policies in South Africa under apartheid, and they wrote about how someone can change society no matter their social standing.

Swaminathan said she was surprised and excited to hear she was named a winner. She was selected from a pool of 796 finalists from across the country.

“It was nice to get validation that people liked my writing,” she said.

Composition assistant Leslie Atkin coordinated the contest for Whitman students and helped decide which students moved on to the second round. She said she wasn’t surprised that Swaminathan was named a winner.

“The people who actually make it to this competition are solid writers,” Atkin said. “To be nominated to participate in this is an honor in it of itself.”

Swaminathan wrote about the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and environmentalist Rachel Carson, who both dramatically impacted society despite their low social standing.

“My main point was that despite their disadvantage in a patriarchal society, both women made change through literature,” Swaminathan said.

Bruneel, who nominated Swaminathan for the contest, said he has been impressed by her abilities all year.

“She has regularly been the top scorer on essays in my AP class,” Bruneel said. “She pushes the intellectual boundaries, but the whole time she is able to maintain clarity.”