About the Nicholl

This post is a blatant rip-off from a thread on the Wordplay forums: 

Alicia asks: "So, what is it that continues to bring Nicholl so many submissions?"

Greg Beal answers:

• The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting is sponsored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Perhaps some writers want to be able to say that they participated in a program sponsored by the organization that hands out the Oscars each year.
• Up to five $35,000 fellowships are awarded to talented new screenwriters each year. (BTW, it has been five every year since 1995, when four fellowships were awarded. Over $3.4 million has been awarded since 1986.)
• Last year, Short Term 12, written and directed by 2010 fellow Destin Cretton, was a critical darling and an audience favorite (among those who saw it).
• The ranks of Academy Nicholl fellows include writers, writer-directors and writer-producers such as Allison Anders, Doug Atchison, Destin Cretton, Raymond De Felitta, Jacob Estes, Anthony Jaswinski, Ken Kristensen, Ehren Kruger, Kurt Kuenne, Andrew Marlowe, Jason Micallef, Randall McCormick, Terri Miller, Karen Moncrieff, Annmarie Morais, Mike Rich, Creighton Rothenberger, Bragi Schut and Rebecca Sonnenshine, among others. Novelists among the fellows include Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides, Patricia Burroughs, Jim Foley, Robert Gregory Brown and Robley Wilson. Academy Nicholl fellows have written, co-written, directed or provided the story for movies that have earned more than $5.4 billion at the world-wide box office.
• Four of the five 2013 fellows have either sold their scripts or been hired to write on assignment. The fifth is the recipient of an up to $150,000 production grant.
• In recent years current and past Academy Nicholl fellows, as well as finalists and semifinalists, have had scripts appear on the annual Black List of "best liked" unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.
• The program has served as a stepping stone for some writers. Among the past finalists, semifinalists and quarterfinalists are Michael Arndt, Steven DeKnight, Ava DuVernay, Vince Gilligan, Damon Lindelof, Melissa Rosenberg, Scott Rosenberg, Jon Spaihts, Meredith Stiehm and Marianne Wibberley, to name only a few.
• Each year lists of fellows, finalists, semifinalists and quarterfinalists are distributed to hundreds of Academy and film industry members. Many writers are contacted each year directly through their appearance on one of these lists.