What does everyone think of organizations that connect students with research orgs and PhDs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a well-known professor who receives "counselor" and private school student emails me about wonderful opportunities to work with high school geniuses when my field is only taught to Ph.D. students.

I actually replied to one student giving him a simple math puzzle. He sent back three replies asking for clarification. I sent one final email explaining that he was too high-maintenance to work independently, and needed to focus on his math and science courses. Then I blocked him.

One prestigious London college has a summer program for high school students taught largely by their Ph.D. students. The high school students collaborate on a group paper and I think you can pay extra for a letter.

I presume college admissions officers see through this pay-to-play stuff. Professors can easily see it. I saw a documentary about the national science talent search. When interviewing one semi-finalist, a professor casually asked how far the sun is from the earth. The student replied "I only know about carbon-dating alligator teeth!" It is obvious when a student is narrow versus broadly curious and self-motivated.

Anyone else thinks this pompous stinker should eat his own shit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's marketed as research consulting, that they will help you explore your "passion" then connect you with a research team for an internship. The researchers are paid by the consultant to hire the student intern. This feels like open cheating.

How do college admissions officers tell the difference between these cases vs kids who genuinely wanted to do research and went out to find a research assistant job and did it for 2 years instead of 2 months? What kills me is these authentic jobs are probably nothing impressive, I mean what could a high school junior possibly do for a real research team beyond taking notes? But the paid-to-play kids above could be getting more impressive research "experience" that involves authorship on research papers. It's incredibly unfair.

Personally I’m not impressed by pay-to-play research, but there’s no point in getting upset by it. Nor is there any reason to underestimate young scientists—mine won a fully funded research fellowship the summer before her high school senior year. She is now a freshman at HYPSM, where she has another fully funded research fellowship lined up this summer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's marketed as research consulting, that they will help you explore your "passion" then connect you with a research team for an internship. The researchers are paid by the consultant to hire the student intern. This feels like open cheating.

How do college admissions officers tell the difference between these cases vs kids who genuinely wanted to do research and went out to find a research assistant job and did it for 2 years instead of 2 months? What kills me is these authentic jobs are probably nothing impressive, I mean what could a high school junior possibly do for a real research team beyond taking notes? But the paid-to-play kids above could be getting more impressive research "experience" that involves authorship on research papers. It's incredibly unfair.

Personally I’m not impressed by pay-to-play research, but there’s no point in getting upset by it. Nor is there any reason to underestimate young scientists—mine won a fully funded research fellowship the summer before her high school senior year. She is now a freshman at HYPSM, where she has another fully funded research fellowship lined up this summer.

To add, she was also paid hourly to do research during the school year, so there was continuity, and she was listed as a co-author in the resulting peer-reviewed publication.