Johns Hopkins Book Award

About the Award

The Johns Hopkins Book Award Program is administered on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association by its local communities, which serve as the primary point of contact for participating or interested high schools. Local alumni must partner with the school in the request process and also in the presentation of the award.

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 the recipient 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:

• A demonstrated desire for intellectual and moral growth
• An uncommon interest in, and capacity for, independent and original scholarship
• 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.

2025 Award Selection 

Each awardee receives a book from the Johns Hopkins University Press, America’s oldest university press.  

So the Story Goes: Twenty-Five Years of the Johns Hopkins Short Fiction Series
edited by John T. Irwin and Jean McGarry

So the Story Goes gathers the best short fiction of the series, works exhibiting wit, elegance, and wisdom. Writing about a wide variety of subjects and in a multitude of styles, the twenty writers collected in this book share a mastery of language and an extraordinary ability to entertain. Read more…

"The stories are written with a high literary competence, some are virtuoso performances."—Baltimore Sun