The Coolidge Scholarship application includes three essays. Essays two and three both have required readings which can be found below.

Please note: while the below readings are required, you are certainly permitted to reference other sources when preparing your essays — a good place to start is our About Coolidge page, the new Coolidge documentary available on Amazon Prime Video, and the Coolidge Virtual Library.

Essay I

You have learned and achieved much up to this point in your life. What are the next intellectual frontiers you hope to explore in your college years? How do you envision you might use the knowledge you gain?

Note: this essay does not simply ask what you hope to major in during college and what job you want as a career. Instead, please write about the ideas that interest you most, what you still have to learn about them, and what you envision you might do with the knowledge you gain in college. Please limit your essay to 400 words.

Essay II

In Coolidge’s era, the United States and the newly-established Soviet Union offered competing philosophies about how society should be organized. Coolidge was opposed to the Soviet system, stating unequivocally: “Socialism and communism cannot be reconciled with the principles which our institutions represent. They are entirely foreign, entirely un-American.”

In an essay of 600 words or fewer, please explain Coolidge’s view. In your response, be sure to consider the two countries’ different economic systems, their underlying principles, and their outcomes.

Please find resources available at the link below to assist in your research. You may augment these materials with additional research if you like. Note: You do not have to agree with Coolidge. Your task is to understand and articulate his perspective.

Required Readings & Research Materials

Essay III

Today the federal individual income tax seems a permanent fixture of American life. But the tax is little more than a century old. For most of the first part of American history, there was no federal income tax.

The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the 1913 Underwood-Simmons Act introduced the levy, starting with a top rate of 7%. Congress quickly discovered the power of the income tax as a revenue engine, and raised rates on individuals dramatically to fund World War I. Following World War I, federal tax reform became a major policy priority for both parties. The 1920 Republican platform called the load of taxes on Americans “staggering,” and the Democratic platform likewise advocated reform. Upon becoming president in 1921, Warren Harding joined Congress in slashing rates. When Harding passed away in 1923, President Coolidge and his Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon continued to lead Congress in passage of tax rate cuts. Some suggested that lower rates would never raise enough revenue. Others claimed that the rich would shoulder less of the tax burden under the Harding-Coolidge-Mellon plans.

Write an essay of 600 words or fewer describing and evaluating the tax reforms under Harding and Coolidge. What was the logic behind the 1920s tax reforms? What does evidence from the Harding and Coolidge years tell us about the impact of the 1920s tax reforms? Please find resources available at the link below to assist in your research. You may augment these materials with additional research if you like. Note: You do not have to agree with Coolidge. Your task is to explain the logic of his policy.

Required Readings & Research Materials