How can teenagers create such science projects?

[Anonymous]

We toured an Ivy and I googled our tour guide and his brother who us also in Ivy that he mentioned during the tour.

He said played a lot of sports in his small but very selective predominately Asian tech school.

In at the ripe age of 14 he presents a research that involves deep knowledge of environmental science, designs and builds a data collection device and build a web server to transmit data to, then developed neural networks to analyze the data.

His older brother a year earlier, in his junior year, also presented a similar project that also involved AI and a device to transmit environmental data. He won an ISEF award for this.

Their dad happens to be a CTO in a company that works with telecom hardware.

Please explain to me how is this humanly possible for 14-15 year olds to have time to play sports, get good enough grades and test scores for Ivies, have learn how to build hardware devices, web servers, neural networks and conduct research? How is this real?

In my previous company it took an entire company to build things like that.

I’m just curious. Please, explain this to me.

[Anonymous]

Psst...their parents help them or have connections who can help them.

And some college counseling firms also will offer connections or contacts with graduate students or college professors who need cash, who can direct their research or coauthor with these kids...for a price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We toured an Ivy and I googled our tour guide and his brother who us also in Ivy that he mentioned during the tour.

He said played a lot of sports in his small but very selective predominately Asian tech school.

In at the ripe age of 14 he presents a research that involves deep knowledge of environmental science, designs and builds a data collection device and build a web server to transmit data to, then developed neural networks to analyze the data.

His older brother a year earlier, in his junior year, also presented a similar project that also involved AI and a device to transmit environmental data. He won an ISEF award for this.

Their dad happens to be a CTO in a company that works with telecom hardware.

Please explain to me how is this humanly possible for 14-15 year olds to have time to play sports, get good enough grades and test scores for Ivies, have learn how to build hardware devices, web servers, neural networks and conduct research? How is this real?

In my previous company it took an entire company to build things like that.

I’m just curious. Please, explain this to me.

I think you already know ... why don't you lay it out for us, OP, so that we know what you want to hear

[Anonymous]

I'm a research scientist married to another research scientist. It's NOT possible for a child to do all this work, even if they had nothing else going on. My daughter's friend has done science competitions in her parents' field of research (which also happens to be mine), and in order to compete at a high level, she's received a lot of parental help. Even as a motivated, STEM-minded, obviously capable student. And she's still not winning the top prize!

Colleges are being disingenuous here. They want measurable outcomes. So if the applicant has won an important scientific or engineering prize, they're not going too closely about how they got it and who helped them.

Thank goodness my children are not interested in following in our footsteps. I would feel very uncomfortable about helping them create a project like this.

[Anonymous]

I work in tech and like I mentioned at my company it took teams of people, some exceptional, to make prototypes like what these kids claim to be making.

[Anonymous]

I Googled to see what a high school classmate was up to. Bright guy but known to cheat in high school.

His kids were winning science prizes on topics related to parents' PhDs and using lab space and equipment belonging to a teammate's parent's company. Where my sister also works.

Among cited accomplishments was an alleged patentable process one of the kids invented that doesn't seem to have become productionized.

One kid became a Coca-Cola scholar. Both ended up at Stanford for part of their education. One dropped out to do a startup that sounds suspiciously like an already existing business.

This family's doings are not Theranos level of suspicious but might get there if they work hard. Lol.

By the way, the Theranos lady's dad worked at Enron.

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of up-and-coming grifters out there.

[Anonymous]

You know it's bogus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of up-and-coming grifters out there.

Today's up-and-coming grifters are tomorrow's big donors.

[Anonymous]

I hate how cynical people are here. A lot of kids out there are gifted and capable of a lot

[Anonymous]

One sport can keep a kid busy enough with school work …this is surprising .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Psst...their parents help them or have connections who can help them.

And some college counseling firms also will offer connections or contacts with graduate students or college professors who need cash, who can direct their research or coauthor with these kids...for a price.

So like most American projects… a scam!

[Anonymous]

Most people at top colleges are normal, hardworking people. These are the edge cases where they’re very connected

[Anonymous]

I'm a high school English teacher, so I read a lot of college app essays/materials.

MANY parents purchase projects for their children to help in the college admissions game. Many parents pay for someone to write articles or creative pieces to be published in their child's name. I could name one family whose name you would know/recognize who blatantly purchased an accomplishment that was falsified and presented as the work of their daughter. And many more garden variety amitious upper middle class parents who do the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We toured an Ivy and I googled our tour guide and his brother who us also in Ivy that he mentioned during the tour.

He said played a lot of sports in his small but very selective predominately Asian tech school.

In at the ripe age of 14 he presents a research that involves deep knowledge of environmental science, designs and builds a data collection device and build a web server to transmit data to, then developed neural networks to analyze the data.

His older brother a year earlier, in his junior year, also presented a similar project that also involved AI and a device to transmit environmental data. He won an ISEF award for this.

Their dad happens to be a CTO in a company that works with telecom hardware.

Please explain to me how is this humanly possible for 14-15 year olds to have time to play sports, get good enough grades and test scores for Ivies, have learn how to build hardware devices, web servers, neural networks and conduct research? How is this real?

In my previous company it took an entire company to build things like that.

I’m just curious. Please, explain this to me.

I think you already know ... why don't you lay it out for us, OP, so that we know what you want to hear

This. Such a stupid post. Feigning ignorance and adds a seemingly non sequitur: “ Their dad happens to be a CTO in a company that works with telecom hardware.”