这封信由 Ridge High School in Basking Ridge, N.J. 16 岁的 Anya Wang 撰写，是学习网络学生公开信竞赛的前 9 名获奖者之一，我们收到了 8,065 份参赛作品。
Dear The New York Times Learning Network,
I’m not sure if you imagined that someone would write a letter to you when you announced that we could write an open letter “to anyone you like.” Well, whether or not you did, here I am.
Don’t get me wrong. I admire your contests and resources deeply. But after three years of pouring hours into your contests yet receiving nothing but a copy-pasted rejection email in response, I want to bring a facet of your contests into scrutiny. A facet that you may have never thought twice about.
That is, your policy that you do not provide feedback on submitted essays.
I get it. You received 12,592 submissions for your last editorial contest. But after all, you’ve named yourself the Learning Network. Feedback is how students grow. It’s how we learn. Without it, every time I’ve received a “You lost!” email from you, I’ve felt sorely disappointed and lost, not knowing where to look or what to change to improve my writing.
And I know that I’m not alone. In fact, your contests leave the vast majority of your participants stranded in the dark. In last year’s editorial contest, the chance of getting recognized — not even winning — was a measly 1.199 percent. Winning was bestowed upon just 0.087 percent of your participants — a rate almost 40 times lower than Harvard’s class of 2027 acceptance rate.
You want to be prestigious. You want to be selective. But what you’re creating for the thousands of hopeful teens who enter your contests — nearly 100,000 in just your editorial contests alone — is not a network for learning and growth. Instead, you’re creating a cutthroat competition where feedback and encouragement are given at a rate even below what the Ivy League has deemed ethical. It’s discouraging and unresponsive — a culture far from conducive to learning.
Additionally, you’ve commonly mentioned a Round 4 in your recognized finalists, but never explained how Rounds 3, 2 and 1 work. I desperately want you to tell us more. What if you discreetly told each participant which round their essay reached, and then shared some general thresholds that prevented essays from proceeding to the next round?
I hope that won’t be too logistically difficult — you probably already need to sort essays into different rounds to determine contest winners. I also hope that you won’t balk at the supposed decrease in prestige such a change might bring. You’re a global leader in journalism. You know how things are for teens right now. You know, with the world changing at breakneck speed, with everything from A.I. to full-blown wars flung at us, how sharply teen voices demand to be heard.
Don’t leave us in the dark. Shine a ray of light into our writing, and prepare all teen voices to take the stage.
Signed,
A “Loser”
Works Cited
Harvard College Admissions and Financial Aid. Admissions Statistics | Harvard. Harvard College, 2024.
Schulten, Katherine. How to Write an Open Letter: A Guide to Our Opinion Contest. The New York Times, 19 March 2024.
The New York Times Learning Network. Open Letters: Our New Opinion-Writing Contest. The New York Times, 12 March 2024.
The New York Times Learning Network. The Israel-Hamas War: A Forum for Young People to React. The New York Times, 16 Oct. 2023.
The New York Times Learning Network. The Winners of Our 10th Annual Student Editorial Contest. The New York Times, 29 June 2023.
The New York Times Learning Network. What Students Are Saying About Learning to Write in the Age of A.I. The New York Times, 25 Jan. 2024.