<p>So I was reading on the website and it says:</p>
<p>"Students engaged in advanced scientific research may submit a research abstract or a full paper for possible review by a member of Yales science faculty. Full reports are generally more useful than abstracts. Students may also consider requesting a letter of recommendation from a research mentor who was personally involved with the scientific work. The letter should come directly from the mentor and include the students full name and high school."</p>
<p>So does it mean that they send it to a faculty member and the faculty member states whether it is good or not? I am nervous, I did research on the probability for photons to undergo quantum tunneling it is not bad and is probably pretty good for high school, but I mean it is a Yale faculty member. Are they going to judge it on the same level as an academic paper? Mine is like 15 pages long and I got awards for it at science fairs, but it is not like Intel stuff. Do you think they will be harsh or acknowledge the fact that high schoolers have attempted something outside of school?</p>
<p>I did it on my own, so i am not sure if a science PhD would think it is any good? Do you think that it would hurt my chances of admission?</p>
<p>Send it in! It's important to show that you are commtted outside of school to academics. I did research at a public university last summer and sent in a research abstract along with a great rec from a professor I worked with. For you, it's probably necessary to send in the whole paper so they know what you did. It might also help to e-mail your regional admissions officer - they're really helpful for answering questions (and it's always good to have contact with the school).</p>
<p>I am just really nervous, I mean when you have Intel and Westinghouse people applying i am afraid they will look at mine and laugh or something. But I did mention that i did it entirely on my own on my app so I hope it helps. I am going to email my admission officer like you said hopefully they will assuage some of my fears.</p>
<p>I sent in my 20 page paper which I had submitted to Siemens (where I was a regional finalist). I think that may have been a bit much, but whatever. Yale was the only school, to my knowledge, that has professors willing to read full papers.
For every other school I applied to, I just included a one-page abstract along with my resume.</p>
<p>I have heard that you should only send in things if they are incredible.
At times, reading papers, especially long research papers, that do not meet their standards can deter them choosing. I've no idea if this is true. If you have a doubt about it, don't risk. Maybe just send in the abstract and not the entire paper. If you are entirely confident about it, totally send it in.</p>
<p>I sent in my paper a while ago, but i'm not sure they received it. How are you supposed to know if it even arrived? Same with my supplementary rec....</p>
<p>I want to send the whole paper (it is 17 pages) because Yale states on thier website that full papers are generally "more useful" than abstracts. So I interpet it to mean that it is boost to admission chances. For those of you who did research esp. Siemen's level could you review my research description and tell me if you think it is on par or if you think that a professor would laugh or something. Be honest, here it is:</p>
<p>"The presented research evaluates the relationship between the probability for photons to undergo quantum tunneling and the width of the barrier the particle has to traverse. The purpose was to elucidate the relationship for the development of improved analysis techniques of crystallography for applications to materials engineering. The experimentation resulted in a quantitative relationship expressed as: y=2.02sin(-1.28x-1.44)+1.47.
To obtain the probability for tunneling to occur photons of the frequency of 10 GHz were projected into two prisms that represented the conditions for quantum tunneling and the subsequent voltages prior to tunneling and after tunneling were recorded. From this data the transmission coefficient was calculated according to the WKB approximation. The resulting coefficients violated the probability principle as they were outside of the bounds of 0 to 1 because of the mass less nature of photons.
To correct this error the data was re-expressed and sinusoidal regression was preformed to obtain an equation that modeled the relationship between barrier width and tunneling probability specifically for mass less particles. The resulting equation yielded 58% of feasible transmission coefficients and a 205.13% increase in accuracy over the standard model for predicting probability.
The implications of the research to materials engineering are improved efficacy of crystallography analysis using electromagnetic waves. Because the research reveals the mechanism by which mass less electromagnetic waves enter into regions that typically would be restricted to the waves, crystallography techniques can be improved by allowing for more pervasive entrance of electromagnetic waves into crystalline structure and increased intensity of scattered beams."</p>
<p>Do you think it would help my app? I did not win Siemen's or Intel bc I did it my junior year so it was not eligible, so I am not sure of its quality. I did it entirely on my own, so I hope they take that into account when evaluating it.</p>
<p>And another question do you think it should be double spaced or single spaced? Double space it is 17 pages, but single it is 12 pages. Which do you think would be more appropiate?</p>
<p>And could the rest of you tell me what your research was about, so I can know what I am up against?</p>
<p>definitely double space your paper. it'll make it easy to read. i think the level of your project is great, but work with the sentence structure a bit to make it a little more readable if you can.</p>
<p>It is amazing that you, and others on this forum, are able to do this. What was your fist science class in high school? How could any freshman or sophomore write a research paper like this? I'd call this pretty darn amazing. I will second the "thank god I am not a science major".</p>
<p>1)First class=biology
2)Its easy, find what you like to do and find something new about it
People who write research papers does not imply they are going to be a science major</p>
<p>Yeah I know my sentence structure is awkward, right now I am going through the paper to make it easy to read and understand. Someone on the Harvard thread said that the Yale rep who came to their school said that Yale is BIG on research supplements, especially I think if it relates to engineering bc Yale make engineering its own school just last year so I bet they are looking to expand which is good for me, bc I want to major in engineering. </p>
<p>@WannaBeYalie, I started in 7th grade and did a project on optics and focal point (I actually got the idea from a encyclopedia article), then 8th grade i got my aunt's college chemistry book and taught myself to do a project on how the atomic properties of helium changed during electron transition. Every summer afterwards I would buy a new book, teach myself the stuff and do a research project. Eventually what happens is that I had learned so much the only place to go was up and up on the level of research. To be honest high school science classes do not teach that much, right now in Physics B AP (school does not offer higher T_T) we are doing the same thing that I did my freshman year.</p>
<p>I submitted my abstract. I think if your research is published in a respected journal, an abstract should be enough (even Yale profs get turned down from some journals, so having that credential I think makes your research credible enough as it is). However, if your research is not published or has only won local/regional awards or been published by a not-so-well-known journal it is probably beneficial to send the entire paper (just so that you can show that your research was indeed sophisticated and relevent and not some high school science experiment). My published paper was only 3 pages long (published in a medical journal), and the version of my abstract that I sent was a little less than a page, so I'm hoping that is enough for them to get a feel for what I had done. </p>
<p>Also, it probably depends on what author you are. If you are the first author of a nonpublished study then send the entire paper so they can see you actually know how to write a scientific paper. On the other hand, if you are the fifth author, sending the paper might give them the idea that you are trying to call other people's work your own (as fifth authors usually don't contribute as much to the writing of the paper). At the same time, if the paper is published, i really don't think it will matter, considering other accomplished scientists obviously already feel that you know what you are doing, and thus because abstracts are less paper and less "fluff", they would probably be just as good to send. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that being published speaks for itself (at least in my humble opinion), but otherwise I imagine the entire paper would be better to send. </p>
<p>(that probably made very little sense, sorry)</p>
<p>To WannaBYalie
1) Biology
2) Start by reading some scientific journals to understand all of the possibilities for research, then find a lab that is willing to hire you (this is where the knowledge and hardwork has to already be there through reading textbooks, etc), and either sign on as an assistant (perhaps 3-5 author and a lot of great experience) or be skilled enough (or lucky...hehehe) and discover something of your own that the institution feels is worth investigating (extra lucky=first or second author)</p>
<p>Wow, I didn't do any of that. I just sent in my abstract because I didn't think my paper would be good enough, and I didn't want them to scrutinize it and say "This girl can't write a paper. Off with her head!" or something to that effect. Looks like my research won't do much for me, oh well.</p>
<p>WannaBYalie:
Let me expand on what I did.
When I was a freshman, I spent my time in front of books reading, all I did freshman year was read.
Sophmore year, I got hella bored of reading the stuff I read in freshman year, so I try harder books, and I am stuck there. darn. So I start to derive some of the equations that I did, just for fun. I spent about 6 hours every week just deriving equations and solving random stuff.
Junior year: I had a whole pile of derivations and I just kept on deriving, and I say to myself, people should see my work, so I write a research report. I submit it to the professor of a nearby university and he willingly corrects it and fixes it. I did this about 10 times for a total of 4 polished research papers. I ended up publishing one.
That was my process.
Senior year: Chilling and studying college stuff and still having fun deriving o.o</p>