<p>mutedglory: how much research did you have, just out of curiosity (and to settle my obsessive mind? :)
Also, do you think 2 outside supplementary recs is overdoing it? I did two research projects, one my soph year and another junior year, and was thinking of submitting post-doc recs from both. And does it have to be from a professor?
And to all juniors on this forum, aren't you all anxious to get your PSATs now? Isn't time they come?</p>
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Unless they changed the application for this year
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<p>Which they actually did, I'm afraid</p>
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mutedglory: how much research did you have, just out of curiosity (and to settle my obsessive mind?) :)
Also, do you think 2 outside supplementary recs is overdoing it? I did two research projects, one my soph year and another junior year, and was thinking of submitting post-doc recs from both. And does it have to be from a professor?
And to all juniors on this forum, aren't you all anxious to get your PSATs now? Isn't time they come?
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<p>Research is probably how I got in, to tell the truth. I've been in the lab since the summer after ninth grade.</p>
<p>I don't want to say one way or another whether supplementary recs are helpful or unhelpful, but I will say that I did not submit any. My recommendations came from two teachers at my school and not from the professor I worked with because RSI specifically asked for teacher recommendations. :)</p>
<p>how were u in the lab before high school??? personal connection perhaps? besides everyone knos that essays are the most important no matter how presitiogus the credential, even though u need some science thing to at least have chance at RSI and write and talk about</p>
<p>^ would independent research with publication count as a "big science thing"?</p>
<p>I never entered it in ISEF.</p>
<p>well people say that doing research during the school year counts a lot, and if u've done research, u should really have published in some type of journal. i guess it counts.</p>
<p>what if publication is in the works, but hasn't happened yet?</p>
<p>Do you think that would be enough to get me past the preliminary round of judging?</p>
<p>^hopeful1992, that makes me wonder, how many RSI ppls have research published? I mean, can you necessarily find 75 juniors around the nation who have research published?
To anyone who's gotten into RSI, how do leadership in your school sci.oly., scibowl, math team, and participation look? And also, in the app, should you describe what you did with each of these ecs, or just make a list?</p>
<p>Research in a lab is definitely the main thing that got me into RSI (and I didn't have previous family connections or anything with my mentor). However, at the time of applying to RSI, I did not have any actual publications (refereed/peer-reviewed ones, at least). In my essays, I said my mentor and I were considering publishing our projects and that I was planning on submitting one of the projects to Siemens the next fall. Basically, there was no objective metric of the success of my research (yet). My mentor did write me a recommendation, though, and I assume he made references to the fact that the work is publishable and that I would be a full coauthor once we had completed the work. </p>
<p>I think it is a <em>really</em> good idea for anyone doing research to have their mentor write a supplemental rec, especially if your work hasn't been published yet or you have not been in any big contests.</p>
<p>Leadership probably looks good, although I didn't really have any when I applied. As for describing ECs, I wrote full length paragraphs about each of my research projects and positions, and then one-sentence paragraphs for what I considered my less unique/important ECs, like math team and school clubs.</p>
<p>^ilvcs, thank you so much....I'm sure that settled a lot of our nerves, especially those of us w/o ISEF and nat'l jshs. However, would you recommend the mentor rec being from your professor or the person you actually worked with, such as a visiting prof? The actual prof. I worked w/ was never really around so he didn't get to know me.
And thanks..I wish all posts were as helpful as yours. :)</p>
<p>I'm glad it helped. While my work ended up being published after RSI, there were definitely a few people at RSI who had done research but not published it and had no immediate plans of doing so.</p>
<p>The mentor I did my research with is a research professor (but he was a post-doc when I started when I applied). He was the guy I actually worked with, and he wrote me a supplemental rec. The full professor who runs the entire lab was actually my professor in a class, so I had him write one of my main teacher recs, but he didn't know much about what I was working on for research. I would only have gotten a rec from my mentor, and not from the full professor, if the full professor hadn't taught me in a course, btw.</p>
<p>It's different from mentorship to mentorship, but I would definitely have the person you actually worked with write the rec. It is a big positive for RSI to know that you are socially capable of working with an older/significantly more experienced researcher. I assume he or she would also have the most specific examples of your passion/ability/promise/etc as well which is very important.</p>
<p>Okay. What are your chances if you HAVE made it to ISEF and have done university research?</p>
<p>well for them university research isn't that impressive, but ISEF is. but really, the essays are what get u in, i'm telling u. there was someone i knew who went to USAMO, but was rejected from RSI</p>
<p>^ so what if I haven't done ANY research at all? Like, I'm planning to do one second semester...and I don't really have any major factors, cept I am taking a college honors math class, and a college science class..</p>
<p>lol but usamo is easy to make [if you are the type to want to do math research]. i don't think it helps that much. </p>
<p>essays aren't everything... really... recs are probably just as important. emphasize to your teachers how prestigious RSI is, and how selective the program is</p>
<p>is there a list of general fields and their respective sub fields? or do we have to come up with one? I was thinking somewhere in either math physics or chemistry. what possible sub fields are there?</p>
<p>Well subfield is like what do you like in math/physics/chemistry? Math is huge. An example of a math subfield could be number theory, physics: quantum physics, chemistry: solid state chemistry.</p>
<p>arXiv.org</a> e-Print archive might help list the possible subfields of a certain topic. It's really a math/sci preprint server organized by field and then by subfield. The math subfield list on arXiv is: </p>
<p>Algebraic Geometry; Algebraic Topology; Analysis of PDEs; Category Theory; Classical Analysis and ODEs; Combinatorics; Commutative Algebra; Complex Variables; Differential Geometry; Dynamical Systems; Functional Analysis; General Mathematics; General Topology; Geometric Topology; Group Theory; History and Overview; Information Theory; K-Theory and Homology; Logic; Mathematical Physics; Metric Geometry; Number Theory; Numerical Analysis; Operator Algebras; Optimization and Control; Probability; Quantum Algebra; Representation Theory; Rings and Algebras; Spectral Theory; Statistics; Symplectic Geometry</p>
<p>would you need to be very familiar with that particular subfield in order to apply, or will you learn it?</p>
<p>Well you won't necessarily get the subfield you applied under. That's up to your mentor. So no, you don't have to be a master of the subfield in order to apply, but it would probably be good if you showed some basic understanding. For example, I would never have applied under Math/K-Theory, because I have no clue what that even is.</p>
<p>I applied under Math/Number Theory. At that time I only had some basic NT knowledge (maybe up to quadratic reciprocity + some basic elliptic curves knowledge). My mentor mentioned me the fact that research NT has morphed into something that is highly advanced and takes years to master, so I ended up doing a project dealing with geometry (I had the option of doing a project in tropical geometry or algebraic geometry). Since algebraic geometry was closer to NT than tropical, I chose algebraic. In the end, my project was actually on surface intersections, so it was actually closer to computational geometry. Nonetheless, it was still pretty cool though.</p>
<p>So really, you will learn what you need to. Some mentors contact you before RSI to give you some background reading (about 1/3 of the them).</p>
<p>Anyways, just for the sake of coolness, Eric Larson of 08 RSI just got 2nd at the Siemens Competition!!! I think his paper is right here: [0812.1603</a>] On the classification of certain fusion categories</p>
<p>i know this has been discussed many times already,but there have been slightly mixed answers..how important are standardized test scores? does the bulk of it lie in essays and recs? if a person writes great essays and has stellar recs and exhibits passion/potential, does he/she have a chance to get accepted?</p>