<p>I agree with Mollie that MIT adcom members wouldn’t scout for info, but it can’t hurt to excercise a bit of discretion in phrasing questions. Anyway, don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>One other thing: the friends I knew who got into MIT made the semis of the U.S. physics olympiad without studying anything beyond their AP physics class (Resnick), so that’s why I suggested it. Also, doing well on that test might help you to get into RSI, a very exclusive researchk program at MIT. RSI candidates are very successful getting into elite colleges. </p>
<p>Getting involved in a research project at some point is a good suggestion. Also, the best time to start research is during the summer, when you can work full-time to learn how to do the main techniques in a research groups.</p>
<p>How on earth does one find research to do as a high-schooler without having a mom who is Professor at X university who hooks you up? It’s not sarcasm - a real, honest question, since I know people younger than I am who could benefit from advice on where to find such opportunity. Well, other than qualifying for this RSI thing I keep hearing about on CC. If it’s not too off topic (and I don’t think it is, considering it’s relevant to advice for the OP), what is RSI, aside from a prestigious research opportunity?</p>
<p>@WhizKid - you sound rather like how I was as a high-schooler, except I know even today a lot less physics than you do. And that’s a bit of a bad thing for admissions - it is important to have something to show for all the interest you have. Reading stuff is great, and realistically, it may help you in college more than anything else you did, since a large part of MIT or any terrific school is actually being an intelligent student. However…</p>
<p>You should start thinking in terms of conveying an idea as to how you’d like to actually help people, using your inclinations. How you might work well in a team. How you are interested in things beyond just being a competitive person. A lot of the posters on this forum are MIT alumni, interviewers, etc, and have said something to this effect. </p>
<p>It is not a crime not to be thinking like that. Sure, you may just want to study physics because you want to study physics. How you help the world? You may just be a good person in general - a lot of good people aren’t MIT people, and are just as important.</p>
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<p>I want to add that I don’t recall seeing mention of mastery in the OP’s first post. Perhaps this is another thing to work on - going beyond familiarity.</p>
<p>All you have to do is email a prof. You don’t have to have a personal connection.
Proximity to a research lab is the only barrier, I think, and even then, you could always stay somewhere for a summer.</p>
<p>CC and intelligent people in general are criminally notorious for refuting something and forgetting about it too soon; a remark false in a single literal sense can have great truth to it nonetheless.</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>
<p>collegealum314, post #26, really answers the incentive question. The granting agencies are concerned about the “scientific pipeline” with good reason, and some individual investigators are, also. </p>
<p>The incentive is not very strong, though. So you may need to email quite a few people before finding one who will take you on, as a high school student. In my experience, the willingness to work with high school students is partly personality based and partly based on the type of research the person is doing–and whether any of it is accessible to a motivated high school student. Surprisingly often, there is something a high school student can do, although I agree with the last sentence of collegealum’s post #26, too.</p>
<p>^^To add to quantmech’s post, biology is a very easy subject to do research in with only minimal knowledge (AP bio). Chem is a bit harder, although synthetic chem. might be easier than physical chem. Still, I think it’s a bit counterproductive to try to do synthetic chem research if you haven’t taken orgo. However, some advanced students have taken organic chem, so they would be fine. Physics is even harder, although I’ve known some very smart people that were able to do it.</p>
<p>If they don’t want to get the jobs by emailing profs, Mathboy’s younger friends can check out this link:
[The</a> Jisan Research Institute](<a href=“jisan.org”>http://www.jisan.org/)</p>
<p>At the very least, they could answer your questions.</p>
Although I totally agree with everything collegealum has said on this point, I just want to note that, quite frequently, mom is a professor at X university. </p>
<p>My boss has a fairly strong preference for hiring undergrads with previous research experience to work in our lab starting freshman year, and unsurprisingly, almost all of them are children of scientists.</p>
<p>I’ll definitely look into JRI and RSI, however I’m only 14 so I wouldn’t expect any physics professors to take me very seriously if I contacted them about research. Worth a shot though.</p>
<p>I actually mean something by that - if you know stuff and are showing promise, you are, and that’s all there is to it. You can get somewhere.</p>
<p>However, depending on how you look at it, it may be unfortunate that your interest is in theoretical stuff, or at least so far - it may be hard to show that off as effectively.</p>
<p>@collegealum - thanks for the link. Didn’t know that existed. This is an area where I’ve been lacking in info to spread to pre-college students. </p>
<p>There are a lot of residential summer programs apart from RSI for high schoolers to do research, I can think of at least 5 more off the top of my head. MIT also has a research program for local students to work on during the school year, PRIMES, and I’m sure other colleges have similar programs.</p>