Hi. I was recently reading throughout the forums that a lot of high school students engage in medical research. I wanted to find out under what position do they engage in, and when the publication is made, do they obtain any credit?
I don’t think a lot of high school students engage in medical research, and only a very small proportion of those end up with a publication during the high school years.
Typically students find a research opportunity either through their high school, family connection, or by directly contacting the professor/scientist doing the research. These opportunities are typically unpaid and do not lead to any type of high school or college credit…although some high schools may have relationships with a local university for credit earning and/or paying types of internships/opportunities.
My D did that during her high school summers. She contacted a number of professors directly. It helped that we live near Boston.
By any chance, was her name included in the final publication?
Publishing isn’t a tip. A hs kid who hasn’t even started college is a novice. Some work on actual research tasks, but generally a small piece, not the level of a grad student, not even the legal of a college soph… The value is in getting up and doing it. But there’s a lot more to do during the hs years, as well. Again, this is not a tip. It’s just a good experience and some kids find other good experiences.
We dknt know anything about your goals.
A few things. First, this was a multi-year research project, and she was in the early part, so I don’t know if it is even finished yet. Second, this particular post-doc aims high (he has three published papers in Nature and Science), so the cycles for those are long. Finally, my D’s role was rather small, so I don’t think she would be worthy of having her name on it.
This isn’t always the case @lookingforward. My S has some research that is posted on arxiv.org. A professor in the field read it soon after it was posted (he works at a top-40 school in the Boston area). And by coincidence it turns out that both his son and my son participate in a common activity, and they happened to compete a couple of weeks later. So the professor put two and two together and realized that my son wrote it. As he told my wife there at the time, he was “shell-shocked” that a high school student wrote this.
Now the question is, when it is time for him to apply to college, how does he convince the admissions committee that this was a much larger research contribution than the relatively minor role that my D had? Given the long publishing cycles, he is unlikely to have a publication by the time he applies.
It’s valid. Sometimes impressive. But publishing isn’t a tip on its own, for a top holistic. Otoh, maybe this is one of the cases where your son includes an abstract, maybe a supplemental paragraph from the research mentor, the goal being to get adcoms to forward his app to faculty (depending on the field.) It isn’t simply getting one’s name on the pub. Not just that.
OP’s taking his impression from the high school kids posts.
If you are looking for a way to publish your own research check out this site. https://www.thejournalofhighschoolresearch.com/
We were planning on an additional rec from the mentor. Thanks for confirming that this makes sense.
OP, sorry for the distraction.
My daughter did do a multi-year research and her name was on the published paper along with the other people who were involved in the research.