Essay Contest 2026

Guidelines

Submissions must not exceed 1,200 words in length, and all essays must be written in English.
Delegates can respond to only one prompt and submit only one essay.
Essay documents must be formatted in 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with standard one-inch margins on all sides.
The heading of the essay must clearly state the delegate’s full name, the delegation name, the faculty advisor’s full name, and the chosen prompt.
External sources are not required; however, if referenced, they must be cited in MLA 8 format.
Essays must be submitted exclusively in PDF format. Submissions in alternate file types will not be reviewed. The PDF must be named in the following format: FullName_DelegationName_PromptNumber.pdf
Essays will only be accepted from delegates whose delegations are formally registered for this year’s session of CMUN.
All essays must represent the original work of the delegate. Any submission determined to be authored, in part or in whole, by another individual or generated through Artificial Intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity) will not be considered.
Essays must be submitted to cathedralmun@cajcs.in by 1st August at 11:59pm IST.
Late submissions or those that fail to meet formatting requirements will be disqualified.

Essay Prompts

Every religion was once a cult: a small circle of believers gathered around a figure the world considered dangerous, delusional, or divine. Perhaps the difference was not moral, but historical. Discuss why some “cults” are canonized by history while others are condemned by it.
Democracies are built on the assumption that informed citizens make rational political decisions. In an age shaped by algorithms, mass media, political branding, and digital echo chambers, evaluate whether democratic systems are still representative of public opinion or have become an obsolete tool of governance.
You are the last human editor at a newspaper. Every journalist on staff has been replaced by an AI that is faster, cheaper, and probably more accurate on matters of fact. Your editor-in-chief asks you to justify why human bylines should still exist. Write that argument, knowing that the AI has already written a more statistically compelling version of it.