Agree, CC is not indicative of the US demographic as a whole. It’s rare to hear anything about colleges outside the top 200.
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Kids at our school do legitimate research. Some of the bio research is in collaboration with a university lab where the kids learn lab techniques such as PCR and running a Gel etc – part of a larger project at the university. Some of the non bio research can be original, but in a small way, sometimes proposed by the kids themselves, or sometimes proposed by the teacher in that area at the school. Someone giving you a problem is legit. If you joined a PhD program, often your advisor gives you a topic. After proposing the topic a small team of 3 kids work on the problem. The results that come out are often interesting. As a parent I myself am interested on how the project is coming along, and I ask my kid periodically. If something reasonable comes out of it, they enter the research in some competitions like Regenron or Siemens or ISEF. I remember some 7-8 years ago a kid took the 4 color problem in map coloring in 3 dimensions, and generalized to a few higher dimensions. He was an ISEF finalist or something. Serious work. Went to Harvard and may now be getting a PhD in Math. Generally these research efforts are not big efforts, but they are legitimate efforts, and good training for the kids.
My son was a part of a team where they used a regular microscope as a 3D microscope, which normally costs in the 10s of thousands of dollars. They devised some interesting solutions to take a 2D image and reconstruct a bacteria swimming in a fluid in 3D. That was really interesting even to me. They won some regional research award.
Another example of an interesting project that is proposed by the kids, and more importantly very doable by the kids is to vary various parameters of a neural network and see how the performance changes – are some structures more brittle than the others. This is legitimate empirical work in that area. And the results that come out are non intuitive and interesting.
There is also a parallel journal reading skill that is encouraged/developed. So kids can place the research in context as to what other people are doing in the field.
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This describes the selective summer program my D22 participated in last year. Because it was held online, the HS students weren’t in the lab and had to watch the graduate students carry out the actual experiments. They then analyzed the data. It was helpful for D22 and fellow HS students to experience the actual research process, including the tedious waiting for results, the incrementalism of research progress, and being scolded for screwing up the data table!
Surprisingly, the abstract that D22 and her partner wrote up was subsequently accepted for a conference that largely featured academic and industrial researchers. D22 presented her team’s findings virtually (so I was able to hear/watch) and it was apparent to me that the professionals didn’t take the HS students that seriously (but they were encouraging).
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Applying to 30-40 colleges is simply ridiculous.
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The activities you describe are all legitimate, and validated by participation in competitions, receiving regional/national awards etc. Kids should be rightfully commended and rewarded for participating in these activities where they go the extra mile(s) above and beyond the school curriculum to immerse themselves in these scholastic activities.
The stuff mentioned by other posters above that bothers me is not this kind of activity - but ones where a kid claims to have done high level research and published a paper with a college professor where there is no independent corroboration. Of course, there are a few exceptions - legitimate geniuses; but it seems that other geniuses can be minted for the right price.
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my DD 22 did an independent research that spiral out of her anatomy class. They learnd about particular disease there. Due to covid internships/reserach oppotunities was hard to come by , so she did a literature reveiw on a medical disease of interest, and submitted to a publication in the student research journal HS edition. That is the best she could do. After few rounds of faculty editing the article was published. She worked hard at it and she is only one in her state and her HS who had published in this particular journal. In addition to a stellar grades and scores this past summer was able to get an addiction clinic internship with great LOR . Did it help her to get to some competitive schools ? Nope. )))
waititsed at 3, no rejections yet … )) Few students from her high school were admitted to those above schools… they did not have reserach and their grades are lower. My point is -I dont think reserach impresses colledeges … obviosly they are looking for something else to create their perfect classes. My dtr wants to do reserach in colledge , so for her it was a good expirince regardless.
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The message we get from AOs is that if you are not a pre-med, please be very clear in your application that you are not a pre-med. If you do a bunch of bio / quasi bio research, and don’t make clear that you are not pre-med, AOs assume that you are pre-med. Then the bar becomes much higher. You want to signal a broad spectrum of interests, and specifically not pre-med (or CS on the other side of the spectrum if you are a boy – the pre-med signaling applies to boys as well). In fact if you are a boy, going into literature or creative writing or something similar, that is golden :-). Alternately girls going into Math …
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I have never heard there is a higher bar in admissions for students who might do pre-med, can you share more details? I have also never heard AOs say they infer career paths for applicants, as so many students change their minds in college regarding major, career path, etc.
Obviously one can be pre-med and major in anything, including humanities. Many schools don’t admit by major either, so for many reasons your statements seem curious.
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biology/english was her intendent major in one school and biology/ stats in another. She wants to study biology , chem and stats. Why does she have to invent that she wants to study creative writing or CS ?? Thankfully , She has 2 solid reserach uni options ranked globally in the top 50, plus few honors colledges at the state schools ))) .
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100
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Not saying you’re right or wrong about this…but perhaps we know that the American college application system is broken when there is a sense that the ultimate career goal (or natural interest) of a student should take a back seat to the prestige of the school. 4 years vs. rest of life.
Or maybe you’re saying that the student shouldn’t change the goal, just be deceptive about it in the application. In that case, something much bigger than the application system is broken in America (or a subset of America).
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Schools look at your background/package and make their own inferences of what you are likely to major in, which campus activities you are likely to contribute to, and in some cases what your anticipated GPA is at the end of 4 years. Everything is under consideration. Let me tell you what a toxic category is: asian boy applying to CS either from the north east, or from california :-). Some of the things in the above described category are in your hands, and some aren’t. Likewise for pre-med. You need to be careful about what image you portray. You want to come across as a Renaissance man or woman :-). Everything that can be held against you will be held against you. Everything matters for admissions.
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Bio and chemistry interests are seen as precursors to a pre-med track. And you will be evaluated as being in that pool of kids that are pre-med track to these selective schools. This is generally well understood. If she has great options in the top 50, it means she met/exceeded their bar for that profile, and is a strong student.
I have seen other posters caution you about making broad based assumptions based on your seemingly limited college admissions experience, and I have to agree with them. Your misinformation in the above posts does a disservice to those who are on CC and trying to learn.
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ok. Thanks for the feedback :-).
top 50 globally…, not in US. She has 2 exellent options Mcgill with merit and U Toronto.
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I am not saying at all that you should study something different than what you want to. Not at all. But it is a question of how you present yourself. Packaging is very important.
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My heartfelt congratulations to her. Sincerely. I only mentioned what I mentioned because you said you were not happy with a small subset of the outcomes. I am just saying she may have been evaluated as a prospective pre-med. Which she may be, by the way.
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thank you !))
and, to you, I say good luck! For some kids, it’s not super easy to find real safeties they can get excited about.
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