Welcome to the brief for the 2026-27 American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association A-Level essay competition.
This essay competition falls within a broader project aimed at fostering engagement between the American Politics Group the Political Studies Association, the Schools Programme of the Financial Times, and A-Level students and tutors. This project is funded by competitive funding from the excellence and impact funding of the Political Studies Association and the Centre for Transformative and Global Justice of the University of Greenwich.
If you need inspiration, you can find out about the 2025-26 prize winners here.
You can find the essay competition listed on the BAAS website: here
2026-27 FT-APG Online A Level Conference:
- To support this essay competition an online conference will be held on November 4th 2026 (the day of the US midterms!).
- You can register for this conference: here
- Full information about the conference can be found: here
Key facts:
What:
- Essay competition for 16-19 years olds studying Politics A Level
- Or those studying related disciplines such as history and sociology
- Or similar qualifications, i.e., Scottish Highers and International Baccalaureate
Deadline: Feb 1st, 2027
Length: 1,500 words overall(+/- 10%)
This is broken into two parts:
- One of the four essay questions listed below (1,300 words +/- 10%)
- A reflective post explaining your research and writing process (200 words +/- 10%)*
*There is a section below on reflective writing if you have never done it before.
Submission: Students to submit via their tutor/teacher, with essays emailed to Lead Organiser Dr. Pete Finn: P.D.Finn@greenwich.ac.uk (see below and submission cover sheet for full details)
HOT OF THE PRESS AND NEW FOR 2026-27:
Download our 2026-27 FT-APG project and Essay Competition guide
Page with advice: here
Materials for getting started: here
Prize categories:
The five following prizes will be awarded:
- Best overall essay
- Best argument
- Most original essay
- Best use of evidence
- Best discussion of a social problem
Eligibility: An essay competition aimed at 16-19 year olds studying politics, or related disciplines such as history and sociology, during their A Levels (or similar qualifications, i.e., Scottish Highers and International Baccalaureate)
Those being considered for prizes will be invited, along with a member of school/college staff, to discuss their entries with members of the project team prior to final decisions being made about the awarding of prizes. These meetings will occur online via Microsoft Teams.
Further queries: Lead Organiser Dr. Pete Finn: P.D.Finn@greenwich.ac.uk (students should to submit queries via their tutor/teacher)
Essay questions:
The essay questions are as follows:
- “The office makes the President. The President does not make the office.” Analyse and evaluate this statement with relation to Donald Trump.
- To what degree do the results of the 2026 midterms provide evidence that voters generally turn against the President’s party at midterms elections?
- Evaluate the view that the United States is better described as a flawed democracy than as a model for others.
- “Elections in the United States are decided by votes against political parties rather than for them.” Critically analyse this statement.
Prizes for each category:
- Best overall essay:
- £100 book voucher
- Paid return travel to, and ticket for, the 2027 APG Colloquium+
- Essay posted on Political Studies Association site (if a student wishes)
- All other categories:
- £50 book voucher
- All categories:
- Copy of The Positive Student Planner by Ali McDowall & Finn Prevett
- Further details on this book can be found here
- Copy of Courage Can Save Us by Rye Barcott
- Further details on this book can be found here
- Announced in American Politics Group and Political Studies Association newsletters and the Financial Times ‘Schools Digest’
- Essay posted on American Politics Group site (if a student wishes)
- Bespoke competition prize certificate
- All entrnants
- Bespoke feedback*
- Bespoke competition certificate of submission*
*If it is suspected that a submission has not abided by the spirit of the competition, then the project team may ask for information and qualification on certain points by offering a right to reply. In some cases, this process may mean that an essay is not accepted as an entry.
+Paid return travel here refers to up to £130 to pay for travel within the UK
You are able to withdraw your essay from the competition up to a week after the essay deadline should you wish. If you wish to withdraw your entry will need to explicitly ask for the essay to be withdrawn via your teacher via email. There will be no penalty or negative consequences for withdrawal.
Essay submission and cover sheet:
- Please use the competition cover sheet as the first page of your competition submission (this sheet is not included in the word count)
- Students must submit via their tutor/teacher to Lead Organiser Dr. Pete Finn: P.D.Finn@greenwich.ac.uk
- To submit and be considered for the essay competition, students must agree to the below statement on generative artificial intelligence tools.
- The essay cover-sheet is here:
Generative artificial intelligence statement and approach:
When signing and submitting the cover sheet, you will need to acknowledge you have acted in accordance with the below statement:
‘I confirm that this essay is my own work and that I did not use generative artificial intelligence tools to generate the content of this essay. Essay judges reserve the right to ask for information about how submissions are written.
For clarity, this statement does not preclude the use of spell and grammar checking features of word processing tools such as Word and Google Docs.’
GenAI is a fast moving area, and like others in education and beyond, we need to develop our practice in line with changes. We will engage with concerns around GenAI in good faith and in line with best practices and our capacity at the time of the marking of essays as it stands in Spring 2027.
For those submitting to the competition, we ask that you likewise abide by the above statement in similarly good faith.
You can also find more on the reasoning behind our position on the use of AI: here. However, in short, we believe writing is awesome, and are keen for you to use this competition to develop your writing skills.
You can find a piece with further advice on critically engaging with AI: here
Reflective piece
Reflective writing is an important and empowering skill, and adopted in many professional environments. It is also useful as a means of thinking through how to improve your writing and research process in the future. In the context of this essay competition it is also your chance to communicate to the competition team what thinking and research fed into the writing of your essay.
If you are not used to such reflective writing, you can find an example of it below. This reflection is written by Lead Organiser Pete Finn and based on the following post by:
Finn, P. (2026) ‘The 2026 Midterms: Early and mail in voting means that the election starts weeks before November.’ LSE USAPP (10 September). Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2026/09/10/election-starts-before-november/ (Accessed: 29 September 2026).
‘For this post I was interested in mapping the role that mail and early voting would play in the 2026 midterms. The post was written for the blog site USAPP, which is run by the London School of Economics, and the post sits within a comment series on US elections that I have co-run since 2018.
Before I began writing I first had to detail the place of early and mail in voting in recent US elections and the order in which US states would begin early and mail voting in advance of the election. As such, I, firstly, collected statistics related to previous elections and, secondly, created a table mapping the start dates for early and mail voting across all US states. The data on start dates became Table 1 in my post.
The first two sections of the post are mainly factual and shaped around the data detailed above, while some of the politics around early and mail voting are explored in the final section. In general I would say the post was a success, and I certainly always enjoy exploring the US electoral calendar. However, if I had more space it might have been useful to layer information about, and the discussion of, Senate races.’
Referencing:
- As academics and students of US politics, it is important for us to demonstrate the source of our knowledge. We do this by referencing. Beyond any single piece of writing, being able to reference is an important skill that is useful as a student and in many careers.A great source of material is the Schools Programme of the Financial Times.
- As such, we ask that you:
- Essay submissions are referenced. Please use Harvard referencing to reference your essay.
- Full details can be found in the guide available above.
- You cite at least two sources from the Financial Times in your essay.
Starter materials:
- You can find starter materials, including many from the Financial Times, related to each question on this page.
FT-APG A Level Essay Competition Marking Criteria
Submissions will be judged against the following marking criteria.
Knowledge:
The degree to which an essay demonstrates knowledge of the material related to their chosen essay question. Taking into account the particular topic the essay focuses on.
Argument:
The degree to which an essay provides a clear and consistent argument and narrative.
Evidence:
The degree to which the argument and narrative of an essay is backed up with relevant data (i.e., quantitative material) and/or textual (i.e., qualitative) evidence.
This includes the degree to which the source of data and textual evidence is provided.
Reflective piece:
The degree to which the rationale, research, and drafting which feed into the final essay is explained.
Writing:
The degree to which an essay is written with clarity and the argument and narrative are intelligible.
*Please note, this video was recorded for the 2025-26 iteration of the essay competition. There was no reflective piece in 2025-26, so it is not discussed in this video.
You can find our feedback proforma, which you will receive feedback on your essay in below:
Argument and evidence:
- As developing academics, we want you to start to shape your intellectual identity and, in so doing, base your writing on the factual material that you engage with and the debates related to your chosen essay question.
- As such, rather than just give your opinion, you need to provide an evidenced argument. You can acknowledge other points of view, explain how they differ from your own, and why the evidence suggests that your argument is correct.
- In short, you should look to evidence your argument and avoid unsubstantiated polemic (by which we mean shouty writing that is not based on a sound factual foundation).
You can find a blog post based on Ursula’s talk: here
As well as running the above, the project team is also researching the multi-partner approach adopted on the ‘The A Level Engagement Project‘. This research has ethical approval from the University Research Ethics Board of the University of Greenwich. If you have questions about this research, email Lead Organiser Peter Finn: P.D.Finn@greenwich.ac.uk