Throughout my collge career, I was honored by the university on three seperate occasions for demonstrating excellence in writing.  Students do not enter a competition for these awards.  We submit written performance tasks to demonstrate mastery of the skills and concepts required to earn credits toward our degree.  Our work is nominated without the student's knowledge that we are being considered for an award.  At any given time, a student's written work is in competition with thousands of other students' work across numerous degree programs nationwide.  It is truly an honor to win even one of these awards in the course of earning a BA.