The Wharton Global Youth Program Comment & Win is an annual contest that runs from June to August and is designed to encourage high school-age students to discover Global Youth stories, podcasts and videos, learn about business, and develop stronger reflective and persuasive commenting skills. Four biweekly rounds of competition include a new theme introduced each round. You only have to register once to compete in any or all rounds (see registration button below).
Compete in Our Comment & Win 2023
This year’s contest begins on Monday, June 5, 2023 and runs through Friday, August 11, 2023. Students can choose to participate in one or two rounds, or all four. Four-round competitors are entered into the running for a special Grand Prize. You may comment as many times as you like in a round!
Hundreds of high school students from around the world have participated in the Comment & Win in the past six years, dazzling the Global Youth team with their provocative, insightful and interesting perspectives on our business and finance content. Check out this article featuring the best of last year’s Round 4, as well as links to reports about all the previous 2022 rounds. Many commenting threads inspire lively exchanges, prompting students to practice their reflective listening and discourse skills. These are fun to read and difficult to judge!
First step, be sure to register. Here’s the email that registrants receive welcoming them to the contest.
You can read about our Round 1 2023 Winners HERE.
You can read about our Round 2 2023 Winners HERE.
You can read about our Round 3 2023 Winners HERE
You can read about our Round 4 2023 Winners HERE
What You Need to Know About Round 4, 2023
Round 4 starts on Monday, July 24 and ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, August 11. You’ve got an extra week this Round to achieve commenting greatness!
In Round 4, we’re asking you to flex your meme muscle. Think of all those quotes that circulate on social media, some funny, some motivational, and still others totally exasperating. The Round 4 theme “Potent Quotables” challenges you to identify a quote from a Global Youth article that you find provocative – either because it inspires you to think about something in a new way, aligns deeply with your beliefs, or possibly angers you because you strongly disagree with the perspective.
As you search for meaningful quotes, be sure to consider the source, including the person who is quoted and the context of the business and finance topics they are discussing. What does the quote awaken in you? Use the story comment thread to repeat the quote and remark on what you see as its inherent power. And remember, don’t forget the context. The Comment & Win contest is about immersing yourself in Global Youth content and reflecting on what you’ve learned.
Need a bit of inspiration? Check out Rachel B.’s winning comment from the 2019 Potent Quotables Comment and Win round.
And this from Arpan B., with a quote from a story about a young woman’s struggle to learn English.
While we’ve published some 35 new articles and podcasts in our online business journal since wrapping up last year’s Comment & Win (recent article themes include investing, crisis leadership, climate change, the metaverse economy, neuroeconomics, social entrepreneurship, behavioral economics, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), there are hundreds of stories in our archives dating back to 2011 when we first launched an online platform for introducing high school students to the broad scope of business and finance. Perhaps you have a new perspective to add to past commenters!
You can search our article archives HERE or click on the categories in the upper left corner of each article page to search stories that are grouped by theme (social impact, entrepreneurship, global business trends). This categories page is a more direct path to that type of search. You can access the transcripts and audio for our monthly Future of the Business World podcast HERE.
You can also use our search engine (just click on the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the Global Youth website) to search all articles by keyword or topic. HOWEVER, make sure you first filter that search by clicking THIS SITE and not ALL WHARTON. The Comment & Win contest is specifically for Global Youth content. Comments left on other Wharton website stories will be disqualified. If you don’t see Wharton Global Youth Program in the upper left corner of the page, then you have landed elsewhere in the Wharton community.
Good luck! We encourage all competitors to take a minute to read our Commenting and Online Conduct Policy. Don’t fret if your comment doesn’t show up the minute you post it. We are regularly reviewing and approving comments from the Global Youth Comment Command Center.
How Do I Win?
Ultimately, students who effectively use Global Youth content to inform their comments, add value to the discussion around the text, express opinions clearly and succinctly, and develop an authentic voice, are selected as winners.
For us, that voice is everything. Liza Cowan, an English teacher who founded R.E.A.L. Discussion, a discussion-based learning system for secondary schools, has said, “In today’s world, the stakes are high: students need to graduate confident that their voices matter and competent at engaging others with inquiry, evidence, and empathy.”
Inside Scoop: This is NOT an essay contest! You are responding to content and reflecting on it in different ways. Keep that in mind as you craft your comments.
What Do I Win?
Following each two-week round (we go three weeks for the fourth round), our judges select a top winner for that round, as well as runners-up and, sometimes, special superlatives (Best use of humor in a comment). Top Round winners receive a special prize from Wharton School Press and all Round winners receive recognition in a Wharton Global Youth news story, as well as on social media. All Round winners also receive digital Badges to display online. Commenters competing in all four rounds will be eligible for a special Grand Prize in August and the published title of Comment & Win 2023 champion.
Do Your Research
Want inspiration? We recommend that you read the articles we’ve written about past Comment and Winners, all of which link directly to their comments. You’ll find some useful links from last year’s competition below. You can also search up “Comment and Win” on the Wharton Global Youth Program website for many more winning insights from previous years.
For Educators
How will your students spend their summer months? Between their trips to the beach, college summer programs, internships and just hanging out with friends, why not give them the chance to think, write and shine?
Here’s our Comment & Win Classroom Guide and our Comment & Win Teacher Toolkit for some inspiration to engage your students with our annual Comment & Win contest.
Curious about this year’s contest? Feel free to reach out to commentandwin@wharton.upenn.edu with any questions or concerns.