This past Monday, April 13, Glamour hosted its annual Top 10 College Women event, which has been honoring the country’s top undergraduate women for 58 years. Though the Glamour staff’s task of picking just 10 women from the overwhelming number of impressive collegiettes across the country is undoubtedly tough, they managed to narrow it down to this year’s incredible list of the Top 10 College Women—and these women are truly inspiring.
Mansi Prakash, an Econ major at NYU, took home this year’s grand prize. She’s the founder of the nonprofit Brighter Today, which donates lightbulbs to developing nations in partnership with bulb manufacturer Philips. It also supports development of Mansi’s next project, which is a solar panel prototype that she hopes will bring light to homes that do not have electricity. Mansi told Glamour, “I often think about a girl I met while installing bulbs. She longed to go to school, but her parents couldn’t afford it. Once they started saving on their energy bill, they could. She is why I do this. It’s her life I want to change.”
This year’s winner of the L’Oréal Woman of Worth Award is Meghan Warner, a sociology major at UC Berkeley and a voice for victims of sexual assault. Meghan joined a federal complaint against UC Berkeley’s alleged mishandling of sexual assault cases, and she now acts as director of the university’s sexual assault commission. She even pushed the university to hire an advocate for survivors. Meghan told Glamour, “I want to be the modern Gloria Steinem—spreading the necessity for consent and justice.”
Other winners include a collegiette who’s empowering young women to rock the STEM fields, a student who’s creating plays as a platform on which to discuss hot-button issues and even our very own Lily Herman, Her Campus’s High School and How She Got There editor, who’s helping thousands of students across the globe understand the college admissions process through her website, The Prospect.
Be sure to check out all of the incredible women in Glamour‘s Top 10 College Women! Congratulations to these amazing collegiettes—you inspire the rest of us to be the best collegiettes that we can be!