<p>And can one ask why don’t the public schools in Texas find a way to support potential scientists? Even my Texas loving family members admit that if it doesn’t involve football, cheerleading, or a recognized Olympic type sport, it is hard to get a school system in Texas to allocate resources to the kids whose interests lie elsewhere. The fact that schools on Long Island pay for advisers, and science teachers who stay late to help find opportunities for these kids is a blot on the rest of us- not a smear on their schools. Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan- these public U’s are powerhouses in getting research grants in the sciences- both from the Federal government and from private industries. Why aren’t the public schools in commuting distance to their campuses banging down the doors to their labs to get talented HS kids involved?</p>
<p>You’re asking the wrong questions if you’re staying up at night agitated over a kid overstating his contribution on a Stonybrook project.</p>
<p>Interesting question, lookingforward. Speaking for myself, I would give a lot of credit to the students in Pennsylvania, Utah, and South Dakota (and possibly other states) who are the sole semifinalists in their states, assuming that they do not come from the high schools that produce the sole semifinalists in those states on a regular basis. </p>
<p>It is my opinion that students in some of the high schools (e.g., on Long Island) have more examples of how Intel is done (in the classes ahead of them), and they have a school structure that is more supportive of research. So I have to admit that their making semifinalist status would not impress me quite as much, in itself. Nevertheless, a student who made original contributions to a project would impress me, even if she/he came from a school system and university mentoring structure that helped to enable the accomplishment.</p>
<p>Blossom, actually from an article a couple years ago it seems as if schools in Long Island were cutting back on their funding and science programs and support was also affected. Some schools raised money elsewhere and got grants to help while some professionals volunteered more time. </p>
<p>Seriously, though, if you look at some of the profiles of the finalists and the articles written about them (I don’t think the semifinalists have published profiles), it wouldn’t surprise me if they got into multiple super selective colleges even without Intel.</p>
<p>good find! It is good to see that since 1999, that the competition has become more geographically diverse. Looks like this year about 95 were from NY vs 144 back then.</p>
<p>I’m not so sure these 300 are controlling adcoms, have my own perspective on that. But that’s another point QM and I have had plenty of words about. And, only 40 finalists. You’d have to know where they applied and matriculated. I’d call it an edge, not a hook, not worth a lot of hand-wringing. Give these kids credit for the vision, ability to connect, the hard work and endurance. And hope they have the full picture adcoms like. </p>
<p>The geographic diversity (or lack of) also is indicative of the fact that the judging is not interested in where you are from, but rather, who you are as a young scientist and the quality of your work. </p>
<p>I applaud the absence of artificial quotas by state. At the same time, I think that the concentration in New York is indicative of inequality of opportunity. It seems implausible to me that close to 1/3 of the scientific talent that one is “searching” for happens to live in New York.</p>
<p>To some extent, that is true. But I think the issue is more of the inequality of focus. California is much larger than NY, and has in some areas a big focus and culture about STEM, and education and yet it has far fewer semifinalists than NY.
(even though some people seem to think there are Intel Factories churning out winners here - LOL).</p>
<p>I don’t think it is any difference than in any other area - if you have an interest, whether it be STEM, football, music, Lacrosse, agriculture, you will do better if you are where the action is.</p>
<p>For example, Oliver realized that since his love was farming, he had more opportunities to do that in Hooterville than in a penthouse apartment in NY.</p>
<p>Still haven’t found much time to “research” the facts with a bit of objectivity, haven’t you. I hope you realize that California is just a couple short of 50 semi-finalists in 2014.</p>
<p>How do characterize one single high school in the Bay area that grabs 11 semi-finalists in 2012 and 10 this year? An amazing school would be one answer for sure. An amazing school for the uber wealthy and well-connected also. But what would you say about its resounding success in landing the Intel and Siemens honors? </p>
<p>As I wrote before, you might want to connect the dots by including a few more high schools a la Gunn or MVH and look at programs such as SIMR – just to name one. </p>
<p>As you extend the circles a bit, don’t you think that the participation and success in NoCal has anything to do with the availability of resources that are rather uncommon around the country. </p>
<p>Xiggi- I spent part of my adulthood in a small city in the Midwest and even though there was a decent sized research university there (which got its share of grants and federal funding for research in both applied and theoretical science) and even though its inhabitants included intelligent people who voted and had gone to college and knew the difference between bacteria and a virus, the idea that you would encourage/facilitate/incubate a HS kid with an interest in science by having that kid “do a grownup’s job” would have been preposterous. I knew exactly zero HS kids who did anything extracurricular (shadowing, interning, research, volunteering) that was out of the realm of traditional HS experience. Yearbook- yes. University Lab work-unheard of.</p>
<p>You seem to be suggesting that there’s something wrong with the towns and cities where there are clusters of kids who do this kind of stuff. I’m suggesting that the fault lies with the 99% of towns and cities where a kid who has an interest in the sciences is told to get a job at CVS over the summer and maybe the pharmacist can tell him or her a thing or two about careers in pharmacy. Or a kid who finds chemistry fascinating is told to join the "future chemists of America’ club at school.</p>
<p>Yes- connect the dots. And realize how deep the anti-intellectual bias runs in many parts of the country, and applaud the outliers who actually enable and encourage smart HS kids.</p>
<p>I think a big part of the opportunity for students on Long Island has to do with a university culture that encourages faculty to work with high school students in the labs–or at least to have a grad student or post-doc work with the high school students. If the faculty members have had the experience of working in a research lab early in their lives, they are more likely to consider it worthwhile to mentor young students–so perhaps this accounts in part for the continuing New York slant in the semifinalist list.</p>
<p>Not contradicting blossom–there is a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in American culture. On the other hand, this doesn’t account for the entire geographical effect. The faculty at many universities are not anti-intellectual (!), but they may be encouraged to focus heavily on research funding, and to focus less heavily on educating the next generation of scientists.</p>
<p>I really dislike it when my colleagues adopt a “what’s in it for me?” approach to educating younger students, and I applaud the Stony Brook faculty for suppressing that.</p>
<p>Blossom, why would I take the oblique approach of suggesting something is wrong with towns and cities when I have been VERY clear about what I view as the parts of the competition that has spun out of control. I made analogies to beauty pageants for a reason. And that reason is that the programs are in the hands of a small coterie of insiders that alternate roles on both sides of the judging. </p>
<p>And, if I was not clear enough, I happen to have a TOTALLY different opinion of what takes place at Stony Brook, and that the ultra active mentors who seem to recruit dozen of candidates on an annual basis are far from being altruistic. The “what is in for me” is obviously the publicity and notoriety that the Intel name generates. </p>
<p>At the semi-finalist level, it is a game played by adults with the students being mostly pawns. The saving grace is that the shenanigans played at places such as Stony Brook do not translate in many successful finalists. One can safely assume that the final evaluation that includes individual presentation allows for a more objective measurement of the actual work performed by the candidate as opposed to … the work of a team of adult scientists. </p>
<p>I am all for promoting “intellectualism” and supporting bright young minds, but programs that are inflating the capabilities of 15-17 years old through falsehoods are hardly as positive as some think. </p>
<p>I hope you realize that 50 is less than 95. (hint: by about 45).</p>
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<p>Oh, oh, oh! I know, I know! Selective data selection again! How did they do in 2013? 2011? Most importantly, how did they do getting to the finals or the top 10? </p>
<p>edit: Okay, so you are talking about Harker. A 40k/year private school…that GASP! can afford to support students in programs like Intel, horseback riding lessons, etc. </p>
<p>In the last 5 years, they had a total of 5, count’em 5 finalists. A quick check seems to indicate that they had 0 make the top 10 in the last 5 years (I may have missed one, but I don’t think so). Ohhh, what an inefficient “Intel Factory” they have built - maybe parents should be demanding a refund.</p>
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<p>Duh! People who have access to resources in a $40k/year private school can use those resources to accomplish things! News at 11 !</p>
<p>But that does NOT mean that there are “Intel Factories” in the Bay Area, nor that it is “rigging the outcome” of these great programs nor does it mean that people are representing to the Intel and SIemens programs work that they did not do. </p>
<p>“At the semi-finalist level, it is a game played by adults with the students being mostly pawns. The saving grace is that the shenanigans played at places such as Stony Brook do not translate in many successful finalists. One can safely assume that the final evaluation that includes individual presentation allows for a more objective measurement of the actual work performed by the candidate as opposed to … the work of a team of adult scientists.”</p>
<p>This is simply not true. Each year, 40 out of 300 semi-finalists become finalists (13.33 %). As your friend google can show you, over the past 3 years Stony Brook has had 15 finalist out of 87 semis (17.24%). So your “pawns” actually outperform the nation as a whole. I am glad you are able to support these bright young minds.</p>
<p>Regarding the “not true” comment, try reading my post correctly. Successful finalists is not a proxy for successfully moving from semi to the last level. It relates to being successful in the final round, namely getting a high rank among the finalists.</p>
<p>College alum, one avenue is landing multi-million NSF grants to support such activity and compare such grant to others won in the past ten years. </p>