About

Submission requires a completed research paper of 5,000–10,000 words — the average published paper runs approximately 8,500 words — written in secondary school, sole-authored, unpublished elsewhere, and formatted with Turabian endnotes and bibliography. No prompts are given; the topic is entirely the student's choice, on any historical subject ancient or modern, domestic or foreign. A $70 submission fee is required and includes a one-year electronic subscription to the journal. Papers are evaluated on a rolling basis and remain eligible for at least four consecutive quarterly issues — meaning the review process can extend up to a year, though accepted authors are notified approximately one month before publication. Roughly 12–18 papers are published per issue.

Publication carries weight that few high school credentials in the humanities can match. Harvard's longtime Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons has publicly endorsed the journal, describing publication as carrying admissions weight comparable to winning a national mathematics competition — a rare equivalence that reflects how seriously selective universities regard the credential. Published authors have gone on to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and Oxford in significant numbers. Even submission alone — with a paper still under review — is worth noting on a college application, as the Concord Review itself explicitly suggests.

The Concord Review is the right credential for a student who has already written — or is willing to write — a serious, long-form history research paper and wants the most authoritative external validation that pre-college historical scholarship can receive.