Abigail Wagner
Fall 2025 John Jay Fellow
Hometown: ?
College: Hillsdale College
Degree: B.A. in History
Abigail Wagner is a 2025 graduate of Hillsdale College. While at Hillsdale, she found that the college’s emphasis on teaching its students the great ideas of the Western tradition raised questions about how those ideas both shaped and were shaped by their unique historical moments. This interest led her to major in history. Her senior honors thesis explored the impact of secularization in nineteenth-century England on the portrayal of history in Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. She graduated co-salutatorian. Outside of academics at Hillsdale, Abigail was primarily a member of the college’s competitive intercollegiate mock trial program. In her junior year, she competed on the team named runner-up of the 2024 National Championship Tournament. She also enjoyed singing in the college choir, auditing classes in literature and theology, and tutoring at the writing center.
Abigail credits her interest in the law to her childhood as the daughter of an LCMS pastor in the rural and suburban Midwest and her exposure to public interest law. The time she spent volunteering at her church and related service organizations opened her eyes to the importance of local, faithful organizations in creating and preserving communities. Through an internship at a D.C. public interest law firm during college, she realized the impact the law could have on these organizations’ ability to exist and operate, reaffirming a longstanding interest in becoming an attorney. She plans on applying to law schools during and following her time at the Institute, with hopes of matriculating in fall 2026.