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<p>Mulit-Million NSF grants for people who coach Intel Winners?</p>
<p>Now that is the funniest thing I heard on CC in a long while!!</p>
<p>Thanks for the laugh!!</p>
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<p>So this person who coaches a lot of people is missing out on thost “multi-million NSF grants” and the best she can do is get $10k from NSTA and Toyota.</p>
<p>Wait till she finds out on CC that she is supposed to be getting these “multi-million NSF grants”. She will be so excited! </p>
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Well, that quote from the editorial conflicts with your terrible accusation that the students are not presenting their own work in their presentations to Intel. Nor does it say anything about things being “rigged”.</p>
<p>And then there is this gem:
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<p>When you need to resort to a straw man to make your point, your overall argument is very weak.</p>
<p>Some of you are making it sound like the kids who win are somehow pawns of adult scientists. I am from Long Island and know the caliber of the students and the commitment they have to their research program. And their commitment to the research program begins freshman year and sometimes even earlier through middle school enrichment programs. These students don’t start out at Stony Brook. They earn a place there and have already done several years of their own school-based research. I personally know the 2012 finalists–and believe me these are women who are going to make a name for themselves in the sciences or anything else they pursue. I’ve lost track of one of the winners, but the other is at a top medical school aiming to be a pediatrician. Their involvement with Stony Brook began the summer before junior year. They worked hard there for two summers and commuted there weekly during the school year. Others in the science research program did research in the city through NYU, Queens College, Columbia, Poly Tech, Rockefeller Institute etc. But as special and committed as these science students were, there are many students with interest in other fields–music, theatre, business and math–who also are pursuing challenging extra curriculars, summer programs and internships. It is part of the culture here for many top students.</p>
<p>Well stated @uskoolfish.</p>
<p>I also know some Intel and Siemens winners and they are remarkable and dedicated students. </p>
<p>Sad that people think about the “rigging the outcomes” and accusations that they are just pawn and they are not representing the work they did as the work they did.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot about your point that some of these people started their journey years before and during that time may have had to course correct or ditch their original areas of investigation.</p>
<p>And here’s a recent editorial asking for more stem support for our high schoolers…and applauding STS.</p>
<p><a href=“Support Olympic students: Column”>http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/02/16/sochi-winter-olympics-education-column/5535701/</a></p>
<p>Xiggi- I respect you and usually agree with you (or at least find your arguments well thought out) but you need a quick tutorial in how research grants are rewarded and how universities operate if you think even for a minute that mentoring HS kids is a payout situation for a professor.</p>
<p>Really, I don’t think xiggi has the slightest idea how NIH or NSF grants work. Or how in this funding climate it’s a miracle that any faculty are willing to work with kids at all. My husband works at an institution that is attempting to slash salaries for tenured professors who don’t get grants and already has for non-tenured faculty.
No offense, but when you are in real fear of losing your livelihood it’s hard to be altruistic. But I too applaud Stony Brook for finding outside grants to support their programs, because this money sure isn’t coming from the usual sources.</p>
<p>I understand your viewpoint, mathmom. In my opinion, the best thing that NSF and NIH could do to promote undergraduate education would be to increase research grant funding. There is always a concern that time spent away from serious research will detract from one’s likelihood of funding–and this is a legitimate concern in many cases. My colleagues are in the process of going a bit overboard, and restricting research participation to upper-level undergrads.</p>
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<p>Well, laugh all the way to reading a few things about how SBU has been funding what I call the Intel/Siemens pipeline. One of the most active mentors runs the Garcia Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at SBU. It is not hard to find the listing of the NSF grants and their timing.</p>
<p><a href=“Sign In — Wellspring”>Sign In — Wellspring;
<p><a href=“https://www.collectiveip.com/grants/NSF:0606387”>https://www.collectiveip.com/grants/NSF:0606387</a></p>
<p>Fwiw, I fully expect the typical reply from the people here who prefer to look at the positive angle, namely that the students do actually learn how research works in the real world. Anyone interested in education and promoting the discovery of science will applaud that. But THAT is not all that is involved. I fully maintain that there are a number of people involved that make the concept of high school research a complete mockery by defining projects from their inception to the quasi ending and preparing them for the presentations to competitions. </p>
<p>But if you do not want to see that and the part of the non-altruistic self-promotion and self-preservation role of Intel insiders, so be it. </p>
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<p>Sigh! When do the presentations to the judges take place? </p>
<p>Xiggi- is it your contention that NSF grants in Material Science are awarded in part by how active the researchers are in working with 16 year olds? I’m trying to understand your point here-- but some of your posts defy logic. And even if your posts were plausible, why haven’t the faculty at MIT, Cal Tech etc. (all of whom have active Material Science programs, and presumably can read articles on the internet) gotten on the bandwagon and started advertising for HS kids? </p>
<p>Yes, it’s truly a bizarre scenario for a professor to end up profitting from mentoring high school students.</p>
<p>In terms of these million dollar grants would be a “motive” for corruption, I’d have to know what the funds were allocated for. If the students are getting paid $1000 for the summer, does this account for most of the funds? In that case, it would only profit the professor research-wise if the high school student did real work there.</p>
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<p>My point of contention is that educators such as the recipients of the grant I quoted above have made the programs such as Intel the cornerstone of their activities and are actively pursuing this angle for non-altruistic purposes. In essence, that is not very different from what reseachers do at about every university. Findind the appropriate funding and publishing are the bane of their continuing existence. I have no problems (and fwiw understand how research is funded) and I only brought this up in answering the argument that mentors do it only for the kids and not out of self-interest. In my eyes, they saw the potential of the pipeline of kids from LI and surroundings and made sure to exploit. The success of their program is based on “preparing the terrain” and have sufficient projects to throw at the aspiring scientists, set the hypotesis, and move them through the phases of the projects through summer programs and later follow-up. Students flock to the programs because they are … advertised as primary pipelines to the competitions and students know they will have access to projects promoted by the mentors.</p>
<p>For the above, I really see the value as an education tool and I applaud that THAT part does exist. The issue, again, that those projects are not the results of the original ideas by students but a result of the adults involvement. The students are given themes and the science behind them is presented during the summer programs, and from there the students complete the assignments. </p>
<p>It is undeniable that completing the projects --even by painting the numbers-- require plenty of dedication and efforts. Yes, students might have to spend summers and ride the train a few times a week. So, let’s recognize the efforts and dedication for … what it is. The problem arises when we are expected to believe that the students CREATED every project and developed the research from its inception through the end, and reached novel conclusions. </p>
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<p>I have no idea why MIT or Caltech does not show the same drive to jump into such programs, but one argument could be that MIT and Caltech do not need them as much as the people who run the Garcia Center at Stony Brook. This said, there are numerous programs around the country that target the same audience of students interested in STEM and are eyeing selective schools. </p>
<p>I’m not familiar with how NIH grants work, but NSF grants are judged on two categories - Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts. Mentoring college students and high school students would definitely fall under Broader Impacts. It would probably help quite a bit actually, since it seems as if many academics do well in the Intellectual Merit, but they don’t do as well in Broader Impacts, even though they’re both weighted equally. Though I personally think the inclusion of the Broader Impacts category is overall a net positive.</p>
<p>Are you saying a worthy hs kid can and would come up with a completely novel project? Or suggesting we all believe they did? And that adcoms do and then fall all over themselves to get that kid admitted? I come into all this a lot more skeptical about what Intel means to the college admissions process itself. </p>
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<p>First of all, there are kids who are utterly brilliant and did come up with novel ideas. It is clear that the students who participate in the Intel (and others) are among the smartest, most dedicated, and brilliant students in our high schools. For the adcoms’ perspective, I am not sure that your typical adcom know much about the Intel, safe and except that it is a prestigious award, and that it falls in the category of superior accomplishments. It is not the role of an adcom to scrutinize projects and the connections that might have led to the recognition. They accept it a face value and decide if it is important to the application or not. Obviously, WE do not know how important the recognition might be, and how variable it is on the selectivity of the school. I tend to believe that the impact is modest and a LOT smaller than the students who participate think, and a lot smaller than the promoters might want students to believe. I also believe that the students who are in the finalist group would end up with similar results with or without the final recognition. </p>
<p>But thenn, I also happen to think that this entire competition should be irrelevant to the admission process, and that the announcements should be late enough to have zero impact. </p>
<p>I always assumed that “broader impacts” meant that you were going to help cure cancer vs. study some organism whose impact is much less predictable. Could be wrong though. I’m not the scientist in the family.</p>
<p>among the smartest, most dedicated, and brilliant students in our high schools But you have to factor in that, as said, not all hs facilitate going further with research on the Intel or Siemens level. Or USAMO or whatever you want to name. So this is a small subset.</p>
<p>I agree the impact is modest when the kid is clearly unilateral. Or misses other points in the college app. Nonetheless, it can be viewed as a challenge he/she undertook. And, so be it.</p>
<p>The place you want to make this argument is on one of the hs forums- where kids are telling each other to retake that 2300 and hie their way over to some big contest. This thread was about how kids can get activated and what sorts of ways they do. Not whether we need to hold their work to absolute highest standards.</p>
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<p>Service and community outreach such as mentoring high school students are not included in “broader impact.” As mathmom suggests, broader impact is a function of how the results of the study (the research) may lead to directly solving society’s problems, not indirect benefits like training the next generation of scientists. NSF gives this definition: “To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense.”</p>
<p>Same goes for NIH grants.</p>
<p>The grants which may fund these highschool students are undoubtedly separate from the normal grants that a tenure track professor would apply for. In a parallel situation, the NIH has separate grants which are earmarked for more undergraduate-focused research groups like that in small liberal arts colleges. These grants do have criterion which evaluate how well the undergrads are being trained. Normal grants do not evaluate how well undergrads or even graduate students are trained. There are also specific training grants at the undergrad and grad level, but these are applied for by the individual students themselves.</p>
<p>This is why the allocation of the funds would be key to whether or not its even possible to abuse the intents of the grants. As I mentioned before, if they really do pay the students as has been indicated, then this could account for a sizable chunk of money. If there is full-time administrative staff which run the mentorship program, then this would also come out of the grant. Travel for research presentations also could be included. All of these funds would not actually benefit the research group unless the high school student actually did good work.</p>
<p>The only scenario I can think of where there <em>could</em> be the potential of abuse would be if a significant sum of money was allocated for reagents of research equipment; in that scenario, a professor could have other people use those reagents. I still think it is basically impossible for those grants to contribute anything more than a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of grant money it takes to keep a lab afloat. So obviously, I remain highly skeptical of Xiggi’s proposed fraud scenario, especially since a little internet research indicates that Stony Brook is a legitimate research university and not undergrad-focused.</p>
<p>This kind of pipeline exists in most student competitions I’ve seen. I’ve been to state and national competitions where it was clear that the same mentors had been coming back year after year with their latest crop of prodigies. It doesn’t mean the kids aren’t very bright, committed and accomplished. They are. But clearly being in a certain environment, having access to certain experienced and committed mentors, is a tremendous advantage for these events. Both my kids have had the experience of getting farther in certain competitions than anyone from our area before, and in both cases, it was clear that simply having known more about what the expectations were at that level would have been extremely helpful.</p>
<p>That NSF grant you are mentioning is way more than it probably costs to support a high school student. They are probably paying grad student and postdoc salaries to anyone involved in training the high school students.</p>