<p>Just watched on the TV News:</p>
<p>A record 26 bay area students were recognized as Intel STS semifinalist with DD HS had 7 students earning the honor. This is the first time that a school on the west coast actually equal the same number of honors as TJHS.
A total of 41 California students got the honor. I think the landscape is changing as far as Intel STS is concerned.</p>
<p>Congrats!</p>
<p>Just curious. Is your D’s HS public or private? It it selective?</p>
<p>You can check the intel list. This is a private, very exclusive and expensive private prep high school in the bay area. It’s not the first time they have had more than one Intel finalist.</p>
<p>Hmm, but according to our local paper Bronx High School of Science and Ossining High School both had 8, if you are counting.
I didn’t know it was a contest… (Though I remember some crowing the year we beat out Stuyvesant at Science Olympiad. 
There was a fair amount of crowing about that. )</p>
<p>Our school hasn’t had a semi-finalist in years. Given our older son’s experience with the science research coordinator I’m not really surprised.</p>
<p>@parentofivyhopeful, I don’t know that the landscape is changing at Intel STS, but I do think institutional knowledge is spreading which is a good thing. I want to believe that STS evaluators don’t think in those terms. Instead I think it has to do with the schools themselves. Kudos to those schools for being proactive, but I really wish that STS would do more to share that knowledge with all schools - publish winning papers etc. It would make the playing field more level.</p>
<p>Schools with years of experience with these types of research competitions and many successful applicants will eventually have a database of knowledge which they can share with new applicants. This database can include teachers who have worked with past winners, mentors, access to facilities and even a database of papers that have been successful. Notice the new rule this year that no mentor can be compensated based on results. And before you say anything - no sour grapes here - I am a SF this year - but I come from one of those areas where only one or two students get through each year and there is little or no centralization of knowledge. My school didn’t even know what sts was until I took them my forms. No teacher reviewed my paper or helped me find my lab. There was 0 media interest yesterday, and I’ll be shocked if they even say anything at my school during morning announcements, speaking of which…</p>
<p>congrats to ALL the semifinalists (including those at TJ)</p>
<p>In my experience, most kids at TJ want to learn, succeed, and enjoy, and of course to celebrate their school, not to put down anyone else’s school.</p>
<p>Sorry BBD – I deleted the trash talk!</p>
<p>Year after the year, the Intel STS continues to deliver:</p>
<p>Plenty of hard-working who deserve applause for their dedication and perseverance. It’s a given that many of those kids were presenting amazing posters in junior Science Fairs. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, considering the ever-growing complexity of the research, not much is done to erase questions about the integrity and impartiality of a competition that seems to reward a cottage industry of faciitators more than the candidates.</p>
<p>Take a look at Google’s online science fair. A new player is in town. :)</p>
<p>[Google</a> Global Science Fair 2011](<a href=“http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/index.html]Google”>http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/index.html)</p>
<p>The entire state of Ohio got shut out of the Intel STS semi-finalists? Did I somehow miss something? Doesn’t Ohio come between North Carolina and Oregon alphabetically?</p>
<p>I know next to nothing about Intel, but don’t they remove names and schools, etc., from the entries to lessen the chance of favortism?</p>
<p>Don’t know much about the Intel STS. Is the competition based on materials/facilities easily accessible to most students or one needs a special parent or parent’s friend to compete?</p>
<p>Going to check out the Google’s science fair thing. It would be great if all one needs is a computer and internet connection.</p>
<p>Front page of today’s Merc - congrats!</p>
<p>[Record</a> number of local high school kids honored in Intel Science Talent Search - San Jose Mercury News](<a href=“Intel honors junior scientists – The Mercury News”>Intel honors junior scientists – The Mercury News)</p>
<p>My husband was a judge for 2 years. He spent a large part of his judging time talking with the high school kids in detail about their projects. Where posters were extraordinary, seemingly above the level of a high school student, he would go a read the facilitator’s statement which detailed the student’s contribution to the work.</p>
<p>The school name is identified. For judges from industry who don’t have kids who have grown up in the area, school names don’t mean a lot. Overall the judging is taken very seriously and done very professionally, at least in the one area where I have direct information.</p>
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<p>The Intel STS always have been over-represented with students from NE or TJHS untill DD high school open it’s door for HS (9-12) in 1999 with first graduating class in 2003 and the first Intel STS semi-finalist was in 2004 and first finalist (2nd place winner) in 2006/07. They got 3 semifinalist in 2008, 6 in 2009, 5 in 2010 and 7 this year.</p>
<p>With their lead other schools in bay area got inspired, resulting in this year number of 26 honors.</p>
<p>Congratulations to all the winners. Way to go…</p>
<p>^The amazing thing about Ossining though is that it is a very underappreciated high school around here. It never makes the top ten lists. It doesn’t have the richest parents or the highest SAT scores. It’s in a diverse town with a diverse population. I feel great about them doing so well, though I wonder what was in the water the year that group of kids was born!</p>
<p>And meanwhile, here in fly-over country, I have no clue how this process works!</p>
<p>Excluding the Chicago, Dallas and Houston areas, the semifinalist list has a whopping 25 students in the states between the coasts. Take out Michigan, Indiana and Minnesota and that number falls to 12.</p>
<p>20 states without a single student. Eleven states and DC with one student. Two states with two.</p>
<p>Interesting. I have no idea what to make of it, but it’s interesting.</p>
<p>^^^: It’s a big comittment on the part of the student and the way things stand now, in order to be on that list need a lab/facilities and a mentor to provide guidance and overlook the progress.</p>
<p>That is why few schools show up in great number year after year. Also involvement in science fair at an early age provide the passion and comittment to such efforts. Bay area have annual Synopsys Science fair which is a feeder for Intel International Science fair. It accepts children projects from elemenatary grade nurturing passion at an early age.</p>
<p>Consider it like a full time sport comittment. A large number of US States might not have internal science fair and so children in elementary grade might not have any exposure to this in the first place.</p>
<p>I looked up the Harker School in San Jose – $35K a year in high school tuition and it is not a boarding school. And they make a point of saying that the full cost of the program is significantly more than that due to support from their endowment. Just wow.</p>
<p>Siemens sends out research submissions for blind reads. Not sure how it goes with Intel, but for Intel STS (as opposed to Intel ISEF), there are several essays, plus grades/SATs and a recommendation are submitted in addition to the research paper. Siemens tends to focus more on the specific research; Intel looks at one’s potential as a future scientist.</p>
<p>TJHSST and Montgomery Blair are traditionally the two schools with the most semifinalists nationwide, averaging a dozen each per year (TJHSST has about 400 kids per class; Blair has 100). They definitely benefit from having NIH, NIST, a major flagship and a lot of research facilities available in the area. This year they each had seven; to me, this indicates that others are getting more involved in other parts of the country. Both Blair and TJ have research programs in place as part of their specialized programs and many students get involved, though not all submit to competitions. Best part: they are both public schools.</p>
<p>POIH, one does not necessarily need a lab or a mentor supervising one’s work. My S mostly worked under a tree in the front yard. Stopped in to see his mentor starting halfway through junior year to have S read articles the prof was assigning his PhD course and talk math. S came up with his own hypothesis. When S got his breakthrough, we were visiting friends in CA and the mentor didn’t know S had a result until S returned from vacation with the paper he’d written on the plane home. The prof’s letter made it abundantly clear this was S’s original work.</p>
<p>My H went to Bronx Science back in the day and he is VERY happy to see they got eight SFs. BxSci had a long drought.</p>
<p>A good friend of mine has a now-freshman son at Ossining. When I told her about their recent success at Intel, she was flabbergasted!</p>
<p>oldwisermom, there’s a huge push for math/science in the schools that started when my oldest was in elementary school. That also correlates heavily toward some cultures that revere math/science. I think what you’re seeing is the pockets of the country where the schools, in their push for math/science, and the cultural make-up of the schools are coalescing. Add to that the fact that these areas with high intel winners also tend to be clustered near urban areas that have science/math magnet schools. I would not interpolate that it means that midwest, with the exception of Chicago, Detroit or Minneapolis, is devoid of exceptional students :)</p>