<p>Ok so here is the story- two years ago, I entered the Siemens Westinghouse Competition with a team project and was a Semifinalist, which I was really happy about and have put on all my college apps with the hopes it will help me into my dream school (Georgetown). I worked really really hard for it (about 4 months worth of research) and was thrilled when I found out we were semifinalists. Two years later, however, I am second guessing myself like crazy because I was going back and looking at the paper we wrote and I found some errors in the data and some of the conclusions we had I have since found out to be false. Here's the worst part: looking over the old lab stuff it looks to me like some of the data was misrepresented, like there are a few sections where we apparently omitted some results that may have partially disproven some of the findings or made the accuracy of the method questionable. Now, this is a very small part compared to the overall project, which is still very good, and we even wrote in the paper that some of the data was omitted and that errors were a definite possibility. However, this coupled with the new knowledge that many of our findings were in fact false makes me quite uneasy. The other thing is I can't even remember exactly why/how we decided to exclude some data, or even if it was my decision (since my partner and I split up some of the work), but I'm pretty much freaking out. I've gone through all sorts of excuses in my head like: it was supposed to be a learning experience anyway, it was only a high school project, everyone else probably does it, the rest of the project was still good, etc., but I can't get over it!!! Maybe I sound freakish, but I don't want to get into my dream school and then later in life wonder whether I really deserved to be a semifinalist and always be wondering if I ever would have gotten into Georgetown (not that I even will get in) if I hadn't and then feeling like I cheated my way through life. Do you know what I mean? In my mind, I have even proposed the crazy idea of renouncing the prize and somehow telling colleges that I didn't really deserve it, but even though I know mistakes were made, I still worked my butt of big time to win that. I feel so GUILTY!! Ahh!! Am I overreacting??? What should I do???</p>
<p>Please help!! What should I dooo???</p>
<p>Well - just disregard the mistake. EVen Nobel laureates make mistakes. Frex, Watson and Crick proposed a triple-helix model for DNA before proposing the actual model.</p>
<p>Gluesticknick, I won every science competition I entered except the last one. Midway through the work, I found out what I had was a bust. So I wrote it up as such. Part of the problem was that I was basing some info on Mendel's work, and my results were unintepretable when I replicated a portion of his work. Many years later, scientists did a similar thing, and it is now pretty much known that the good monk fudged his data. It was looking me right in the face, but I could not see it. NOt quite as simple as that, but pretty much the story.</p>
<p>I don't know where you are in your project. If there is still work to do, you can gather up your discrepancies and issues and put them in a separate section. If this is all a done deal; well, anytime you go over an old project after you have matured, you are going to cringe. A year of organic chem made my award winning research on isomers look like nursery school stuff and the mistakes and incorrect assumptions made my head spin. I felt like a fool that I was so proud of that project, but you know,, I was a high school soph-junior when I did the work, and 4 years later it was a whole different story.</p>
<p>Yea this project was finished 2 years ago...I know I'm just going to have to get over it and move on, but I feel so cheap. I mean its one thing to be wrong but to actually not report data that could have proven it wrong right then and there...I feel like I cheated and don't deserve what I earned and thus don't deserve any of the benefits (like acceptance to my dream college) that might come from it...I can't believe I did that!!!</p>
<p>I really don't think it is an issue. As I said earlier, few projects and reports and essays can bear scrutiny once you move on academically.</p>
<p>jamimom- I know you are right and I appreciate your support as I try to grapple with this...it probably sounds weird but I am a very moral centered person and to think that I knowingly skewed data and lied on a research project that won me an award, even if only on a very small portion of the project and even if not a real big lie, makes me very angry at myself.</p>
<p>bump........</p>
<p>Don't renounce the prize. A much better approach would be to write an essay/paper about what you now realize was wrong with the original research and paper. Then include the second paper in your college applications. </p>
<p>I'm not a college admissions officer. But if I were, I'd move a student who did this to the top of my list because it would demonstrate growth in knowledge and maturity.</p>