About the Award

The Johns Hopkins Book Award is a prestigious award offered yearly to an exceptional junior at each of the participating secondary schools.

The award celebrates the spirit of Johns Hopkins University, whose alumni populate the upper echelons of many disciplines, including literature, the arts, medicine, the sciences, international affairs, the social sciences, and engineering.

The Johns Hopkins Book Award Program is administered on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association by its local chapters, which serve as the primary point of contact for participating or interested high schools.

When and where possible, local chapters make a representative available to present the award on behalf of the Alumni Association.

While the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association considers this award to be an honor, receipt of it should in no way be construed by its recipient as any indication of likelihood of admission to Johns Hopkins University should he or she choose to apply.

Award Criteria

This award is for the junior in each participating high school who best exhibits the qualities and characteristics that form the core of the Johns Hopkins ethic:

1. A demonstrated desire for intellectual and moral growth
2. An uncommon interest in, and capacity for, independent and original scholarship
3. The strength of character necessary to employ the results of their scholarship for the betterment of society

A student must plainly exhibit all three of these characteristics to be granted the award.

Award Books for 2013

The awardee receives one book from among several titles drawn from the Johns Hopkins University Press, the oldest university publisher in North America. The book will be chosen by the student’s school faculty or administration representative.

Four books are being offered, three of which have been authored by a Johns Hopkins faculty member.

• Mary Elizabeth Garrett: Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age, by Kathleen Waters Sander.
• Nation Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, edited by Francis Fukuyama
• So the Story Goes: Twenty-Five Years of the Johns Hopkins Short Fiction Series, edited by John T. Irwin and Jean McGarry

Read more about the 2013 award books and their authors.