How can teenagers create such science projects?

[Anonymous]

My child’s school offers a dedicated class for research, so I expect there’s not significant outside time spent on these projects if they have several hours a week physically in class, then time that would ordinarily be homework or studying. I also learned some parents might be involved with advice, suggestions, etc., I guess that was naïve, though I have no personal knowledge since the kids I know in the class have parents with no professional overlap. So, it depends.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure their parents helped them.

There's also a really good chance those kids have been immersed in these topics and fields their whole lives... from the dinner table and home lectures to the classroom. Sounds like they were surrounded by high-level information and responded in kind.

[Anonymous]

I had this conversation with DC last night. DC is in the running for valedictorian, plays two competitive sports and other activities. She works and volunteers, etc.
We did no pay to play and I almost feel guilty about it now.

[Anonymous]

Parents do the bulk of the work. It’s become absurd.

[Anonymous]

You know, we came across a college consultant who got friends’ kids into Ivies. He was trying to push me to buy a research project for science fairs that someone else would create and train DC enough to contribute to it some and to be able to interview about it. I was shocked and appalled and rejected him.

But know I’m beginning to think it’s common and when he was trying to convince me it’s a rigged game he was right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.”

I honestly googled the name and he, his brother and his dad showed up. That’s how I know about his dad. I live in a completely different area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know, we came across a college consultant who got friends’ kids into Ivies. He was trying to push me to buy a research project for science fairs that someone else would create and train DC enough to contribute to it some and to be able to interview about it. I was shocked and appalled and rejected him.

But know I’m beginning to think it’s common and when he was trying to convince me it’s a rigged game he was right.

Why don't you name this person if it's so common and mainstream? I see no reason not to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know, we came across a college consultant who got friends’ kids into Ivies. He was trying to push me to buy a research project for science fairs that someone else would create and train DC enough to contribute to it some and to be able to interview about it. I was shocked and appalled and rejected him.

But know I’m beginning to think it’s common and when he was trying to convince me it’s a rigged game he was right.

Why don't you name this person if it's so common and mainstream? I see no reason not to.

The college consultant? No, he definitely doesn’t want to be named. He gets hired by personal recs only and doesn’t advertise himself.

[Anonymous]

My spouse came from a low income family and participated in ISEF. He enrolled in a summer program at a state university (his tuition was covered because he applied for financial aid mostly) and then was connected to another program at a closer college. So it is possible to do it without family connections but you need to be proactive about scholarship opportunities. Colleges have some programs for high school age kids.

[Anonymous]

A kid in DC's high school won the John Locke prize with an essay 100% written by their parent. Kid apparently was fairly open about it. Got into an ivy.

[Anonymous]

This type of thing has been happening for decades. My sibling would work so hard on a specific science project and would win the local and regional science fairs but their incredible effort was displayed on plywood and printed dot-matrix at the time. Our fam could barely afford anything. When their project made it to the state levels the glossy brochure type projects on professional boards would always win. You could tell it was all parent intervention. And this was 30 years ago!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure their parents helped them.

There's also a really good chance those kids have been immersed in these topics and fields their whole lives... from the dinner table and home lectures to the classroom. Sounds like they were surrounded by high-level information and responded in kind.

Absolutely. Have seen this in a handful of friends' homes. They talk science and innovation like others' talk about details of team who won the MLB (baseball) game last night. While not every kid of a scientist will win a prize, the talk, the discussions, and doing definitely happening in many homes.

[Anonymous]

The Regeneron kid from our school submitted a project that is IDENTICAL to their PhD parent's sub-specialized lab work at a DC university. It took me 30 seconds to google this. I have no idea why Regeneron or colleges play along with this farce. Probably because they are making money off of it and they need kids to keep them relevant.

[Anonymous]

Should we be discussing that you googled the tour guide?

creepy

[Anonymous]

The emperor has no clothes.

But it's also like a, don't hate the player, hate the game, thing.

The tour guide and his brother are very smart, talented people, I'm sure. They did what they needed to do.