El Estoque was awarded a Gold Crown on Friday, March 21 by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the highest award the association grants. CSPA, a Columbia University-operated association aimed at educating and guiding student journalists and their educators, grants the award is granted to several student publications, yearbooks and literary magazines from around the U.S. every year. Members of El Estoque’s staff claimed the certificate in person at the CSPA Conference from March 17 to 21 at Columbia University, where adviser Julia Satterthwaite also accepted her award for National High School Journalism Adviser of the Year.

CSPA judges, who include former advisers of student media and professional journalists, looked at submitted issues of the El Estoque magazine, as well as elestoque.org, from the previous 2023-24 school year. When last year’s co-Editor-in-Chief and MVHS alum ‘24 Lillian Wang was looking for ways to improve the quality of the publication, they and their team of managing editors and editors-in-chief sought to focus on improving magazine design. In particular, the team focused on working closely with design editors to make each issue’s cover stood out. Wang believes that magazine design is an important part of crown awards, and in response, did regular design review sessions with El Estoque staff before magazines would be published. 

According to CSPA’s website, “publications are judged for excellence demonstrated through design, photography, concept, coverage, and writing,” and can receive either a Gold or Silver Crown. Wang believes El Estoque’s commitment to improvement and high-quality design and writing are what lead it to consistently win awards. Though they are no longer part of the magazine, they regularly read it and appreciate the page designs of each issue. 

“El Estoque is a really good student magazine,” Wang said. “I’ve come to Cornell and I’ve had people tell me that they used our magazine as inspiration for their student newspapers in high schools. I think it already has a really good, solid foundation for winning awards. To me, the only thing that really matters is keeping up the consistency and the quality of articles and just continuing to work as hard as we have been doing in the past.”