<p>Oh, it is not that hard to figure out. The fly-over country does not have access the multi-million dollars lab, small armies of willing mentors, and paint-by-the-number projects.</p>
<p>How do Setauket’s Ward Melville and Stony Brook compete? </p>
<p>You don’t necessarily need to have access to laboratory facilities in order to do your own research, though having the resource certainly helps in broadening the types of projects you are capable of doing. I had a friend in high school who did her observation-based study entirely by herself at a zoo. Not sure if she submitted her work to Intel STS, but she won one of the top prizes in her category at the national ISEF that particular year. In fact, she found her mentor online, emailed the professor after reading one of the person’s research papers. The person was very influential in her field but lived in Europe. They corresponded solely through emails and met face to face for the first time during the ISEF fair, when the mentor opted to fly in for the occasion.</p>
<p>Being from an area such as rural Wyoming that precludes local access to labs warrants more effort on the part of the student but shouldn’t prevent from one from conducting research. For instance, Stony Brooks has something called a “Simons Summer Research Program” that comes with a $1000 stipend that’s open for application to all high school juniors. There’s also a similar program at the Texas Tech University (Clark?), just to name a few. (And all of these I found through a search of past CC threads btw :)!) The past participants of these programs are usually extremely successful in Intel and similar national science research competitions.</p>
<p>The problem, I think, it’s that most students are never informed of the availability of these opportunities in the first place----those attending top math/science schools are more likely to be better informed, with knowledgeable high school research teachers to encourage participation. Conducting a research project at the level needed to compete in Intel STS involves tons of time and often years of effort from learning about the topic matter to designing and conducting the project to finally writing the research paper.</p>
<p>Xiggi – I’m hard pressed to read that NY Times excerpt and think about anything other than the parents who did their kids science fair projects for them in elementary school. What a sham.</p>
I would extend this idea and argue that students in Wyoming - or my current state, for that matter - may not really be interested in completing a project in line with the Siemens specifications. Most of us will not aim to attend colleges where such a project would be beneficial in admissions, and there are many other ways to gain interesting knowledge or experience in a field.</p>
<p>BTW, that doesn’t take away from the hard work and skill of the students who win at this level at all. I just don’t think that this a good proxy for measuring the educational opportunities available at a given school simply because different cultural expectations may foster different kinds of educational experiences.</p>
<p>Why is it that whenever some activity is mentioned on CC, its worth is always judged in context of how much it matters in college admissions :(? Isn’t there reason to pursue research for the sake of intellectual inquiry and experience regardless of whether it helps one get into college? And using research to increase one’s chances is poor idea, in my opinion, because it only matters for admissions when you discover something important, whereas the reality is, unfortunately, that most of us never do.</p>
<p>The friend of mine I mentioned before chose to attend a LAC that most people wouldn’t have heard of (she had great grades) because she loved the school and it provided her with the resource to further the interests she had in high school, which are very much related to her research. Most of the people I knew from high school who did research projects never qualified for Siemens because their works were not designed with the competition in mind or they never even applied. There are certainly “other ways to gain interesting knowledge”----reading about it, hearing about it, etc----but being able to go into the field yourself to test out a hypothesis, to push against the boundary of the unknown, is such a challenging, rewarding, and worthwhile activity that I hope it’s not going to be tainted by the hypocrisy of college admissions.</p>
Conducting research and competing in a certain national research competition are two different things. As you seem to know:
My school does not have as many STS semifinalists as TJHS or POIH’s D’s school. Actually, I don’t believe we have ever had a semifinalist. It is possible - and maybe probable - that no school in my state has ever had a semifinalist.</p>
<p>What I don’t agree with is the OP’s implication that schools should be measured based on their success in fostering STS semifinalists. I don’t believe that my school is necessarily doing a worse job than TJHS simply because we don’t have as many STS kids. A premium is not placed on entering these contests. It isn’t part of the social norms. That doesn’t mean that students here don’t have opportunities to test out their creative thought in their fields of interest. I know from first-hand experience that we have some excellent programs that help students learn from mentors in their fields of interest, both in academia and industry.</p>
<p>It sounds like the Intel STS research is the new African for community service projects (for college admissions).</p>
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<p>That really should be where the research takes place. Creativity and how to conduct research should be the focus and “under a tree” provides plenty opportunities.</p>
<p>It would be easy for Intel to make it very clear that the STS competition is 100% about research and has nothing to do with college admissions. All they would have to do is delay the announcements of semi-finalists and finalists until May. </p>
<p>I think it doesn’t make a difference, colleges that care about research (MIT/Caltech) gave DD Early acceptances based on her research summary she provided as part of the application in December itself while she was declined from Harvard even after being an Intel STS semi finalists in March.</p>
<p>When one is working on a theoretical project, parking oneself under a tree with the iPod and the dog is a PERFECT lab. :)</p>
<p>As for one of my science-fair participants, he didn’t start til middle school, and his projects were programming-related. He learned languages and and solved interesting problems. He won because the computer scientists who assessed him knew S had written the programs and because of the way he could discuss what he’d done. S did the science fairs because it was a way for him to learn something outside the classroom, at his pace. Ironically, S realized a year after one of the projects that there was a very simple algorithm that a first or second year CS major would have been able to apply to solve his problem. Instead, S’s project took three desktops three weeks to run. It gave him a sense of proportion later when it came to the “value” of his Intel/Siemens work.</p>
<p>As for parental funding – the flagship was a busride from school. Provided printer paper, ink cartridges and access to a computer. Bought a backboard. That’s it. For my other science fair guy, he borrowed some simple measuring instruments from a prof at the local community college and set up his experiment at home. </p>
<p>For S1’s big research project, the professor didn’t even expect the results S had. The prof’s mentoring consisted of having S come in once every week or two, he’d give S articles to read and have S prove them on a whiteboard to demonstrate he understood them. Turned him loose for the summer and said “let me know if you need anything.” S showed up in August with his research paper.</p>
<p>POIH, Harvard even rejects kids who get both Intel STS finalists and Siemens Regional Finalists. It’s OK. </p>
<p>Among S’s year, one kid did research in his grandmother’s tomato garden and one worked in a storage closet in Bayonne, NJ. </p>
<p>All that said, both programs are looking for particular kinds of kids and projects. After all, they are handing out the $$ and using them for publicity…</p>
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It gave him a sense of proportion later when it came to the “value” of his Intel/Siemens work.</p>