<p>
</p>
<p>In truth, you are being guided by a grad student for the most part, especially in the beginning. The prof will give you a project and decide what you will do in the beginning, and you will start to learn techniques on a small part of the grad student’s project. Then maybe at group meetings, the high school student will update the prof on what they are doing, interacting more with the prof as they grow as a scientist.
They can write it on their grant applications that they have trained x number of undergrads and also high school students. Also, some just want to encourage people to go into science careers. The truth is most undergrads don’t really accomplish that much research-wise.</p>