The New York Times Learning Network Student Contests

The official calendar lists six contests plus a weekly feature: My Tiny Memoir, a 100-word narrative (16 September - 28 October 2026); a visual contest on what it is like to grow up in 2026 (28 October - 9 December); the STEM Video Interview Contest (6 January - 17 February 2027); the Open Letter Contest (17 February - 31 March); the Podcast Contest (31 March - 12 May); and the Summer Reading Contest in three rounds from June to August, alongside the year-round Current Events Conversation.

Neither appears on the 2026-27 Learning Network calendar. They have been replaced by the Open Letter Contest and the STEM Video Interview Contest. If your child was training for the Editorial Contest, the Open Letter is this year's argumentative slot; if they wanted the STEM Writing Contest, the equivalent now is a video interview of up to two minutes with an expert. Past winning editorials are still on the site and remain useful models.

The Open Letter asks you to write to a specific person or group and persuade them to change something on an issue you care about. The difference from an editorial is the addressee: your argument has to fit that reader's situation, incentives and actual power to act, so general public commentary falls flat. Before drafting, answer three questions - who is it to, what exactly do you want them to do, and why would they refuse. The third one usually decides the piece.

Every contest is free to enter and no subscription is required. Some prompts do ask you to respond to specific Times coverage, but Learning Network posts and the articles they link are generally accessible without a subscription. Many school districts and public library systems also provide digital access to cardholders, so check with your school or local library if you hit a paywall.

Yes. The contests are open worldwide to students aged 13 to 19 who are enrolled in middle or high school, with no nationality or country restriction. Children of New York Times employees are excluded. Most contests accept individual or small-group entries, but each one posts its own rules page, so check that contest's age, team-size and submission requirements before you send anything in.

A hundred words cannot hold a life, only a moment. The reliable method is to draft around 300 words and cut to 100, keeping one concrete scene and one turn while deleting all the setup and the closing lesson - the two things that eat the most words and impress the least. The Learning Network publishes past winners in full with judges' commentary; read ten of them first and the preference for specific detail over big themes becomes obvious.

There is no prize money and no ranking - just Winners, Runners-up and Honorable Mentions. The real value is that winning entries are published with a byline on a New York Times domain, which is a publication credit an admissions reader can verify in one click and which belongs in the Common App Honors section or as an academic entry on a UC Activities List. The bigger payoff is the volume of writing that six or seven deadlines a year force out of a student.

Yes, repeat entries are the point. Each week you pick anything published in The Times that year, write a short response explaining why it caught your attention, and winners are chosen and published weekly. In 2027 it runs in three rounds: 4-11 June, 2-9 July and 30 July - 6 August. For an Irvine eighth or ninth grader it is the cheapest possible weekly writing habit and an easy way to stay sharp over the summer.