<p>Fwiw, none of my criticisms are meant to dismiss the WORK the students do. As it is often the case, many of those students spent their precious youth accumulating awards and achievements to respond to parental pressures. In so many ways, the students are victimized by a process that has spun out of control.</p>
<p>In the case of the Intel competition, I maintain that removing the impact from ALL admission issues would eliminate its biggest attraction. All that would be needed is to delay the announcements of Semis until May and the Finalists until June. Still plenty of time to offer the scholarships. </p>
<p>But let’s not kidding ourselves about the main objective of this competition! Nor kid ourselves about what it has become in certain parts of the US.</p>
<p>Xiggy, I agree with you. The top projects seem to be generated more by well established academic professionals than by the students themselves. This is why our small local public school stands by their philosophy that the research should be student centered and done by the student. The HS teacher insists that the student do his own work. Because the student does the work, he or she understands the concepts and process and can stand up before the panel and intelligently talk about their research. The chances of one of our students winning is slim to none when up against students getting help by college professors and having access to big labs. We don’t care—we’re proud of them and they can stand proudly knowing that they’ve made it on their own to the semi-finals. They probably get more out of the experience than those with college professors holding their hands and guiding them through every step of the research.</p>
<p>Fair enough, xiggi. I agree that the process has spun out of control, but I think that applies to the whole entire admissions game, from SATs (thousands of dollars to prep or purchase), to AP accumulation, to college consultants writing kids’ essays. Of course there was always the kid whose mom made an entire fort out of toothpicks while the rest of the kids had ramshackle Popsicle stick creations. It was an early lesson in taking pride in your own work–some kids get their successes on their own, others with lots of support. Of course we want to teach our kids to do the work on their own, but the fact that some don’t doesn’t diminish the hard work that many kids do. The hard workers are the ones we should focus on, not the unfairness of the system. Perhaps changing the date of announcements would make some people more honest and make judging more open to those without all the supports. It would be interesting to see.</p>
<p>Soccerguy315 - you need to look a bit harder, there are plenty of homeless people that keep up their appearances and don’t dress in rags. There does appear to be quite a back story here. The news reports note the parents were both in an accident last year, they fell behind on rent and were kicked out of their rental (unclear if house or apartment). Churches in our area house homeless families on a rotating schedule and you would never know these people are homeless - they wear clean clothes, the teenagers do their homework at night, many own computers. They have just fallen on hard times or unfortunate circumstances and no longer have their own home.</p>
<p>As a high school student that has done much work in the lab, I can tell you that it is usually very difficult to find mentors. I had to call and email numerous people and met with several before I found someone willing to work with me.
Then, I was given about 6 or 7 scientific papers, which I had to read myself and find ideas for projects from. I came up with around 5, most of which were impractical. I then discussed with the Prof my ideas and we settled on something that was more feasible; an undergraduate level project. I then had to write a 5 page proposal, with citations and materials/methods for ISEF (Team Canada) which i applied to. Granted, it’s not exactly the same as Intel, but they’re run by the same organization. </p>
<p>Anyway, I will write my own research report and carry out my own experiments. The grad student who is ‘mentoring’ me is essentially showing me techniques and reading over my report. Yes, my project is part of her project, but the original ideas came from me. </p>
<p>I strongly agree with sniperas, science competitions are among the best competitions out there. Those who generalize about the competitors are terribly wrong; for sure- you will have a few bad apples, but most of the contestants do their own reading, run their own experiments and so forth. I’m doing biochem research, but I know people who’ve done physics and chemistry research (and gotten into intel) and everyone did their own work…</p>
<p>"“I’m only 17,” she said. “I didn’t have the background to create the experiment. I didn’t know how to use the equipment. I couldn’t create the hypothesis.”</p>
<p>Pretty much sums it up, I would think. Will the judges read that and disqualify her? Or reward her?</p>
<p>We supply clothing to an organization called “The Other Bank” that provides “interview” clothes for people who are homeless, or close to it, and try to come up with a suitable wardrobe if they get the job. You would have no idea that they were homeless by just looking (or at least that is our goal).</p>
<p>Wow, this has been enlightening. Sounds like many of these kids are glorified lab assistants, and that the whole process is very suspect. I’m not saying that the kids with all the support from college programs aren’t bright or hard working, just that they aren’t competing on a level playing field with the equally bright and hard-working but unconnected kid who lives in Nowhereville. I’d always known that there was an element of unfairness in academic competitions in high school (S won a national creative writing award because an activist teacher pushed her AP English students to enter; by the time D, an equally good writer got to the school, the teacher had left and the school was no longer participating in the competition), but this is ridiculous.</p>
<p>For my kids I got them started very early in STEMish projects and activities, where they initially were “glorified lab assistants”. The older two took the bait while #3 wasn’t interested. Over time, the 1 & 2 continued using their own initiative and effort that carried on well into college, while #3 has very little to show in this regard. </p>
<p>What I’m trying to say is that while for a given competition, a student’s output may overstate what the student actually did, if the student is motivated, this experience serves as a foundation and can lead to a lot of good long term in this regard; someone who didn’t have opportunities of this kind may end up never doing any project on their own because they simply didn’t have the experience or background.</p>