<p>Well, siserune, if I wanted to be really tiresome, I’d start running some statistical tests of “chance” as the null hypothesis.</p>
<p>Completely aside from the science/talent and randomness issues, it seems to me that girls these days are more likely to pursue academic success than boys. </p>
<p>There is a lot of peer and societal pressure on boys to excel in other activities like sports and video/computer games.</p>
<p>Girls traditionally had peer and societal pressure to learn “good housekeeping” skills. There is a lot less, if any, pressure on that front, and there still isn’t much peer or societal pressure to excel in sports and video/computer games. </p>
<p>So the girls can give full attention to the two remaining sources of pressure- good looks and academics.</p>
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<p>Look through those ISEF lists you posted, inspect the gender distribution of winners in biology versus computer science, and then try with a straight face to defend the idea that these outcomes are purely a matter of chance.</p>
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<p>The increase is likely to be stronger for women than men. Men and women both like scholarship money and improved chances at college admission, but women are less likely to engage in competition for its own sake, and are more diligent pursuers of all things college. Support helps both men and women, but men are more likely to do things that lack social approval or institutional support, and to make less use of the support that exists.</p>
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<p>It’s “almost obligatory” in the competitive and connected population that tends to win the major science competitions. They study biology at the best undergrad programs, go on to PhD’s and MD’s and MD-PhD’s; are on track to become professors, heads of lab, Principal Investigators, or carriers of portable grants.</p>
<p>Haha, I saw the word “intel” and was attracted. why I won, I seriously do not know. I’m still trying to figure it out, because like you all say there were many, many more good projects. Well, all I can say is, there DO seem to be less boys truly serious about their project. Aside from everything else (complexity, time spent, etc.) the judges really wanted to see true scientific passion more than anything else. They want to see projects done on your own, not in a lab with a mentor handing you the idea on a silver platter. If the guys meet those credentials, then I do know (hope I’m not being biased) if they come off as arrogant (which many boys tend to do, much more so over girls) the judges are majorly turned off. Afterwards, in the aftershock, I asked my judges why I won, and they mentioned not only my hard work and genuine love for science, but that I presented my findings with an overall air of humility. I’ve never been to Intel before this time, and I’ve been doing science fair since kindergarten. The fact that I wasn’t out to get awards actually helped me get it! But overall I don’t think there’s any major bias associated with choosing the top prize winners. However, from a PR aspect, the Power of Three/Girl power thing looks good…</p>
<p>it’s so cool to hear the ‘inside scoop’ from you and congrats!</p>
<p>@siserune, you raise an interesting point. The difference in male/female ratios in computer science and biology continues through college choice of major, Ph.D., faculty positions, and full professorships (at present). That is obviously not due to chance, although I think that the origins are complex.</p>
<p>I’ve not looked at the pattern of project areas of the winners, though. Do you think Intel has any preference to rotate or at least vary the fields of the top awards? That seems unlikely to me, although it must be difficult to compare projects in quite different fields.</p>
<p>Here’s an article talking about science fairs in Canada, and noting a systemic change in the gender breakdown of the participants. [globeandmail.com:</a> At the science fair, girls dominate the class](<a href=“http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090515.wlfair15/BNStory/lifeMain/home]globeandmail.com:”>http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090515.wlfair15/BNStory/lifeMain/home) Confirms some of the points others have raised here.</p>
<p>The chance at stake here is the specific result of the winners of a specific prize. The number of women in science affects odds, if viewed in the roughest sense of sheer numbers. </p>
<p>These other discussions are about the relative strengths of male versus female competitors. Let’s assume normal distributions of male and female strength. The female strength distribution might be shifted higher because the number of females is smaller. There are a million reasons why that makes sense - including reasons that have nothing to do with the matter at hand but which literally reflect the numbers. That shift would have the effect of shortening the odds which were lengthened by the rough numerical count and thus would make sheer chance more likely. </p>
<p>Discussions of why females in science might be stronger are about where the female curve locates, not about why the winners of a prize are or aren’t female. One basic point is that people are not randomly assigned into science or participation in science; it’s self-selecting and a smaller number of females should correlate well to a higher centered distribution.</p>
<p>But it’s chance that 3 winners in a row are female.</p>
<p>While I don’t think post #22 would be a correct hypothesis for more female top winners in the past 5 years…it is an interesting point of view and could be a major reason why the current results contain more gender variety than the results from 20 - 25+ years ago.</p>
<p>QuantMech, the judges seem to be in rough proportion to the # of entries by each field. </p>
<p>The challenge for someone with a highly theoretical math/CS/physics project is there may only be 1-2 judges on a panel of 10-15 who can truly appreciate the complexity of the project.</p>
<p>The challenge for a bio/math project is getting to the big dance in the first place – there are a LOT of folks doing projects in those areas.</p>
<p>And yes, there is Intel STS and Intel ISEF – two different competitions though some of the competitors overlap.</p>
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<p>I think top cosmetic surgeon beats out ‘carrier of portable grant’.</p>
<p>No need to get involved with Intel STS or ISEF if top cosmetic surgeon is the ultimate desired level of achievement.</p>
<p>Not putting down “top” cosmetic surgeons. Just that they’re usually too invovled with day-to-day surgeries to have time for research.</p>
<p>Don’t know how many of the pro-bono cosmetic surgeons are considered “top.”</p>
<p>If you substitute the word “plastic” for “cosmetic” you find a fair amount of research being done. Like whole face replacement. A large variety of new reconstructive techniques.</p>
<p>I agree with you Lergnom…but…Post #32 was “cosmetic.”</p>
<p>Usually much bigger income $$ in that than for the heroic plastic surgeons who are “carriers of portable grants” (and…who may have been Intel entrants and winners.)</p>
<p>Leading academics in biological science tend to also rake in money from consulting contracts, startups, and licensing of technology. Some are much wealthier than cosmetic surgeons. Not all follow that pattern, but many do.</p>
<p>Okay, here’s a different twist on the ISEF fair. My child was one of the winners but his magnet program director insists that what he did for ISEF was a “personal” pursuit, and because he had to do a lot of it offsite, won’t count it for his research grade despite being a winner at this and other competitions. S pursued this project on his own, didn’t ask a mentor for a project, and really worked hard. He did a lot of work with statistics, etc. in class. But this administrator thinks anything offsite is not “real” research. It’s a long story, but at the end of the year (in two weeks) there’s a mandatory research symposium at school, and he’s not allowed to show anything he did for Intel because it was done primarily offsite, and is being asked to write a new paper, do a new board, etc. We told our son to just get it done, but he is really hurt. He’s graduating this year but this has put a huge damper on his excitement. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>jeli, If that is the magnet director’s attitude, I’d suggest that since it was a “personal pursuit,” the director can hand over the check, banner, plaque, etc. that the school gets for a winner and give it to your S, and furthermore, you do not grant permission for them to mention your S’s award in any of their marketing and brag sheet materials, since this was a “personal pursuit.” I’d even put it in writing and cc the principal, but I’m just snarky when people pull stunts like this on kids who have busted their tails.</p>
<p>MOST kids who do Intel/Siemens-level research do their projects offsite. My S was unusual in that he didn’t do it in a lab. If ISEF considers it research, that should be good enough for the director. I would not hesitate to bark up the chain of command on this one. The principal wants the glory for the school, believe me.</p>
<p>You can tell this steams me!! ;)</p>
<p>I agree with CountingDown. Fair is fair. No glory to the school if it is being called a “personal pursuit”. I would go above the principal too…I would copy the administrators and/or elected officials above the principal.</p>
<p>Thanks for the support, guys. We have talked to the director off and on over the past two years, and we know he wants the kids to do something in school and have even talked to our son about that. The principal’s position is that our son promised to do some labwork in school and reneged on it. Forget the other competitions, etc. that he won. Our son is digging in his heels and so is the director. Quite frankly, S is exhausted and disgusted with the whole program.
You’re right, they get all the glory, the money, the reputation, but when S asks if he can show his Intel project at the showcase, they say no, show only what you did in class. What makes it worse is that there are kids who’ve worked in class for two years and still have no results, yet his work is looked at as secondary to theirs. I think you’re right, we need to challenge this over his head, and soon. Thanks, guys. Hard to talk about this with parents at school—helps to have support from parents who’ve been at these fairs and know how hard these kids work. :)</p>