$50,000 Tuition Giveaway Winners Announced!

Today, mental_floss is excited to be giving back. Earlier this year, we teamed up with Borders and Merriam-Webster to run our first ever "College Ain't Cheap!" Tuition Giveaway. Instead of looking at grade point averages and sheets of extra-curricular activities, we simply asked participants one question: "In 750 words or less, explain why you (as the most deserving person on the planet) should win a $10,000 prize for tuition and books."

To our delight, our inbox was flooded with entries. We received haikus and sonnets;  entries from people who were economical with their words (one complete entry read "Too busy studying! Send money soon! Thanks!"); entries from students who had trouble editing their arguments down to fewer than 3900 words (we only asked for 750!), and heaps and heaps of wonderful essays.

In the end, after poring over 6,467 entries, mental_floss decided that these lucky students are the most deserving:

$10,000 Scholarship winners

Sarah Steely "“ Catawissa, PA
David Gorman "“ Fairview, PA
Kailey Roberts "“ Billings, MT
Laura Fitzpatrick "“ Groton, MA
Andrew Muller "“ Katy, TX

Grand Runner-up prize

>Dinner with mental_floss co-founders Will and Mangesh or a $250 cash prize goes to:

Jennifer Neil "“ Bossier City, LA

Runner-up prizes

>A one-year subscription to mental_floss magazine, a mental_floss T-shirt and a Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Jody Roth "“ Chittenango, NY
Craig Boeke "“ Ames, IA
Ryan Andrade "“ Pickering, ON (CANADA)
Jennifer Lennon "“ Centennial, CO

To those of you that entered, thank you so much for making this contest a success. We're hoping to run a similar giveaway next year, so sit tight-- there may be more money to be won. Also, a big thank you to Toby Maloney who organized and ran this giveaway (and is making 5 lucky students very happy today). And as Jason likes to say, "Before signing off, we should thank our co-sponsors, Borders and Merriam-Webster. We should also advise you to go out to Borders and buy a dictionary."