The Winners of Our Open Letter Contest

What’s bothering you? Who could do something about it? What could you say to persuade that person to care or to make change? How could you make us care, too?

Those are the questions we posed to teenagers for our new Open Letter Contest this spring, inviting students to write public-facing letters to people or groups about issues that mattered to them. We received over 8,000 in response.

Written to senators about making health care more accessible, to Gen Z about embracing kindness, and to Taylor Swift about reducing her carbon emissions, the letters were direct, passionate and powerful. We even received one addressed to us, The Learning Network, to which we will be posting a reply next week.

Below, and in this PDF, you’ll find the list of the more than 150 finalists whose work we are honoring. We’ll be publishing the nine winning letters in full — one each day over the next two weeks. We hope you’ll read them and let the writers know what you think by commenting on their work.

But, as we know from running contests for years, winning isn’t the only reward. In their accompanying process statements, many echoed this sentiment by Victoria Anderson-Lynch, whose letter to street harassers made it to our final round of judging:

It started as a prompt given to me as an assignment signaling the end of our grading period, nothing more than another thing to add to my ever growing to-do list … Somewhere along the way my priorities changed. This letter has no longer been written for the sake of having it done, it’s not for any teacher or grade. I am not submitting this with any intention of winning, because what I have discovered throughout this writing process is something more powerful than an award will ever hold. I was given the privilege of finding my voice. For the first time in my life I understand the power my words hold. I hope someday others will resonate with that power and use it to find a voice of their own.

Thank you to all the students who participated, and to the educators who took a chance on this new contest.

If you enjoyed this challenge, join us for our Summer Reading Contest through Aug. 16.

Student Open Letter Contest Winners

In alphabetical order, by the writer’s first name, below, and in this PDF.

Top 9 Winners

Alexander Klee, 16, Amity Regional High School, Woodbridge, Conn.: “Every High School Student Can Save a Life”

Alexis Rippon, 13, Geelong Grammar School, Geelong, Australia: “The Devil From Down Under”

Anya Wang, 16, Ridge High School, Basking Ridge, N.J.: “A Letter From a ‘Loser’”

Casey Goldstein, 17, Byram Hills High School, Armonk, N.Y.: “Dear New York State Senators, Could You Please Repeat That?”

Emma Wang, 15, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, Conn.: “Reclaiming Singapore’s Credit for Success: Removing Colonialist Statues”

Justin, 16, Seoul Foreign School, Seoul: “A Letter to Midjourney”

Leela Uppaluri, 16, The Winsor School, Boston: “Accepting Autism: A Sibling’s Perspective”

Lucy Robb, 17, Jesuit High School, Portland, Ore.: “Grass Lawns: Lavish and Lamentable”

Oliver Bohon, 17, Bloomington High School South, Bloomington, Ind.: “Insulin: Drugs vs. Dividends”

Runners-Up

Aila Woods, 17, Brooklyn Technical High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.: “To the Mothers of the 9-Year-Olds in Sephora”

Aliyah Majeed-Hall, 16, The Potomac School, McLean, Va.: “Why Gen Z Needs Ted Lasso”

Callisto Lim, 17, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston: “Reinstate DEI in Texas Universities: An Open Letter”

Celine Tay, 17, Shanghai: “Dear Moms and Dads, We Should Talk About Sex”

Jessie Hui Hu, 17, Colégio Bandeirantes, São Paulo, Brazil: “Dear Taylor Swift, Let’s Shake Off Those Carbon Emissions!”

Lauren, 14, Seoul International School, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea: “An Open Letter to Mr. James Quincey Addressing Worker Exploitation in India”

Matan Davies, 17, Scarsdale High School, Scarsdale, N.Y.: “An Open Letter to Governor Hochul From a High Schooler Entering Society”

Natalie Krause, 16, South Lyon High School, South Lyon, Mich.: “My (Menstrual) Education”

Niah L. Maduakolam, 15, Munster High School, Munster, Ind.: “An Open Letter to Schools Districts that Discriminate Against Afro-Centric Hairstyles”

Om Nair, 17, North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham, N.C.: “An Open Letter to the Commissioner of the F.D.A., Written By a Maternal Orphan”

Rongfei Mu, 16, Beijing World Youth Academy, Beijing: “An Open Letter to Prime Minister Kishida”

Sofia Fontenot, 18, Kinder High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Houston: “An Open Letter to Labi Siffre”

Sophie Jin, 14, Shanghai American School, Shanghai: “N.Y.C. Needs to Pee — An Open Letter to the New York City Council”

Honorable Mentions

Abigail King, 16, Pleasantville High School, Pleasantville, N.Y.: “An Open Letter to Mental Health Professionals From a Member of the Lockdown Generation”

Amy Lau, 15, Roosevelt High School, San Antonio, Texas: “Letter to Washington: End the Use of Hateful Rhetoric”

Anniyah Rizvi, 17, Langley High School, McLean, Va.: “An Open Letter to the English Language”

Ava Resnick, 13, Ethical Culture Fieldston School, Bronx, N.Y.: “An Open Letter to Screenagers: Start Living Outside the Phone-Shaped Box”

Caroline Serenyi, 18, Holton-Arms School, Bethesda, Md.: “A Necessary Breakup”

Chiana Le, 17, Tarbut V’Torah Community Day School, Irvine, Calif.: “Dental Healthcare Isn’t a Privilege, It Is a Natural Right”

Chidera Okeke, 15, The Berkshire School, Sheffield, Mass.: “Written in the Margins”

Claire Weng, 14, Clements High School, Sugar Land, Texas: “Leaving Library Fines Behind”

Clementine Lu, 15, World Foreign Language School: “Let Kids Be Kids in High School Interviews”

Cyrus Sarfaty, 17, Upper Canada College, Toronto: “Regrets From a Font-Fretting Fussbudget”

Daniel Kang, 16, Tanglin Trust School, Singapore: “Open Letter to Men: Breaking the Silence on Mental Health”

Ella Dickinson, 15, East Chapel Hill High School, Chapel Hill, N.C.: “Dear United States Preventative Task Force”

Eva Manevski, 17, South Lyon High School, South Lyon, Mich.: “Oh Crickets: Turning Over a New Leaf for Food”

Felize Riona G. Ilagan, 16, Philippine Science High School – Main Campus, Quezon City, Philippines: “An Open Letter to the Tycoons of the Global North”

Georgia Bond, 17, Lower Merion High School, Ardmore, Pa.: “Reforming Our College Admissions Culture”

Harshitha Sudhakar, 17, South Lyon High School, South Lyon, Mich: “What Is the Value in Movie Classics?”

Irene Yebin Joh, 14, Seoul International School, Gyeonggi-do: “Beyond ‘Gifted’: Embracing Diversity in Washington’s Classrooms”

Isha Harbaugh, 17, Bloomington High School South, Bloomington, Ind.: “My Life, My Choice: An Open Letter”

Jessica Zhang, 15, Sage Hill School, Newport Beach, Calif.: “Fast Fashion Brands: Your Young Customers Are Heading for the Exit”

Jina Song, 15, Seoul Foreign School, Seoul: “Mayor Oh, Stop Suffocating Us With Seoul’s Waste”

Kathryne Hong, 16, Durham Academy: “Farewell From Nowhere”

Leah Platts-Mills, 14, Smith Middle School, Chapel Hill, N.C.: “An Open Letter Advocating for Accessible Swimming Lessons”

Lila Boutin, 16, School One, Providence, R.I.: “Dear U.S.D.A.: Underresourced Communities Can Only Join Your ‘People’s Garden Initiative’ Once They Have Access to Resources for Growing”

Lila Cassinari, 15, Farmington High School, Farmington, Conn.: “Fueling the Future: A Student’s Right to Eat”

Lola Babinski, 15, Lyons Township High School, Western Springs, Ill.: “Normalize Noise-Cancelling”

Lucas Rounds, 15, Open World Learning, Saint Paul, Minn.: “An Open Letter to Millionaires Who Hold Our Healthcare Hostage, and the American Healthcare System”

Qiming Yang, 18, Emma Willard School, Troy, N.Y.: “An Open Letter to High School Educators: The Case for Home Economics”

Nathan Yam, 14, International Christian School: “Nuclear Power Is Safer and Greener Than You Think: A Letter to Greenpeace”

Ngoc Linh Nguyen, 17, Vinschool Smart City, Hanoi, Vietnam: “Tote Overload: A Letter to Cotton Tote Bag Users”

Nickohli Beiersdorf, 17, James E. Dottke Project-Based Learning High School, West Allis, Wis.: “A Letter to the Metal Community (From a Metalhead)”

Paula Garcia Moreno Caraza, 17, Instituto Mexicano Regina, Mexico City,: “An Open Letter to Mexico’s Undecided Voters”

Santiago Vira, 17, Brooklyn Technical High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.: “To the 3-D Printing Industry, Let’s Fix This”

Sophia Tsien, 17, Bergen County Technical High School, Teterboro, N.J.: “Dear Congress: Let the China Initiative Rot”

Vale Kerns, 18, Arlington Career Center, Arlington, Va.: “Health of a Nation”

Vanessa Moffett, 15, Jack, Emma and Grace, Bernards High School: “Peaking at 16: Unregulated Competitive Sports Are Breaking Children’s Bodies and Minds”

Xinyi (Cindy) Zeng, 15, Milton Academy, Milton, Mass.: “(An Unapologetically Pink) Letter to the National Speech and Debate Association on Gender Bias in Debate”

Additional Finalists

Here is a PDF of all of our finalists, including 96 additional entries that made it to the last round of judging.

Thank you to our contest judges.

From The New York Times: Ana Paola Wong, Ana Sosa, Anastasia Marks, Anita Patil, Dana Davis, Elie Levine, Emma Grillo, Emma Kehlbeck, Evan Prince, Helmuth Rosales, Isaac Aronow, John Otis, Juliette Seive, Kassie Bracken, Ken Paul, Kendal Simmons, Kirsten Akens, Kristina Samulewski, Margaret Goldberg, Mark Walsh, Mathilde Tanon, Matt Twomey, Melissa Su, Natoria Carey, Nina Feinberg, Phoebe Lett, Rebecca Katzman, Robyn Roberts, Rollin Hu, Steven Rocker, Sue Mermelstein, Sunhee Evans, Sydney Stein and Vivian Giang

From The Learning Network: Jeremy Engle, Katherine Schulten, Michael Gonchar, Natalie Proulx and Shannon Doyne

Educators and writers from schools and organizations around the country: Annissa Hambouz, Caroline Gilpin, Elisa Zonana, Erica Ayisi, Jeremy Hyler, Kathy Curto, Kim Pallozzi, Kimberly Wiedmeyer, Melissa Slater, Sharon Murchie, Shira Katz, Susan Josephs, Tanya Wadhwani, Tom Houston, Tom Rademacher and Zoe Yu