How can teenagers create such science projects?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“You’re teaching students to be cynical about research. That’s the really corrosive part. ‘I can hire someone to do it. We can get it done, we can get it published, what’s the big deal?’”

"The research services brag about how many of their alumni get into premier U.S. universities. Lumiere Education, for example, has served 1,500 students, half of them international, since its inception in the summer of 2020. In a survey of its alumni, it found that 9.8% who applied to an Ivy League university or to Stanford last year were accepted. That’s considerably higher than the overall acceptance rates at those schools."

The sad part is that this fraudulent scheme works...

That could easily be a selection effect. If you are willing to do this, you are clearly already pretty driven (or your parents are). Sans Lumiere (ha) they might well be over the line already through all the activities they do. Justly or not.

[Anonymous]

High school research fraud is not analogous to youth sports.

High school research fraud is akin to teaching young athletes taking performance enhancing drugs to get a medal.

A world of difference.

[Anonymous]

Acknowledging the contribution of a high school student to a research paper is not fraud.You can claim it once or a million times. It still doesn't make it fraud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“You’re teaching students to be cynical about research. That’s the really corrosive part. ‘I can hire someone to do it. We can get it done, we can get it published, what’s the big deal?’”

"The research services brag about how many of their alumni get into premier U.S. universities. Lumiere Education, for example, has served 1,500 students, half of them international, since its inception in the summer of 2020. In a survey of its alumni, it found that 9.8% who applied to an Ivy League university or to Stanford last year were accepted. That’s considerably higher than the overall acceptance rates at those schools."

The sad part is that this fraudulent scheme works...

That could easily be a selection effect. If you are willing to do this, you are clearly already pretty driven (or your parents are). Sans Lumiere (ha) they might well be over the line already through all the activities they do. Justly or not.

Exactly. These types of programs stack the deck against students that don't have the resources to do them, but it doesn't mean they do not educate the participants about science research and involve them in research projects.

It is actually very akin to youth sports. It's called pay to play. Does it mean that the most talented soccer players or the most talented future researchers are getting recognized for their talent in their youth? It does not. It provides for the talent that has the resources to develop their talent and the ones that don't have the resources to do that are left behind as usual. But it is the American way.

[Anonymous]

Colleges should stop rewarding all these non-academic related activities. Of course kids can do whatever activities they like as EC but that should not be a criteria to get into a school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

You need to relax. There are over 3 and 1/2 million kids that come out of high school every year and a very small percentage of them are interested in science research at all. Of the very small number some do poor quality projects, some do average quality and some do high quality projects. You've got yourself in a snit over a tiny amount of high school kids.

It's not the number of kids involved, nor the quality of the research produced, that's the issue. It's ethic and honesty. Are you okay with kids unethically claiming they have published research papers when in reality all they did was the equivalent to washing test tubes? They barely knew the subject, did not contribute a single ounce of thought, did not write a single sentence for the papers, and yet are dishonestly listed as co-authors because their parents pay for the opportunities or hook them up with friends/colleagues willing to look the other way?

Can you please Google order of authorship on scientific papers. There are hundreds of different scientific publications and they all have different guidelines and rules, but in general someone that makes a small contribution comes at the end of the list. No one with any knowledge would be confusing that person with any kind of lead researcher.

Order of authorship depends on scientific areas. Some do alphabetical, some put corresponding author at the very end, some order based on decreasing contributions. The problem is not the ordering. It's the fact that being co-authors makes kids seem more impressive than they really are. Wow, this 16-year-old published a paper in journal of XYZ! When in reality they were merely cleaning data or doing other mindless, mundane work. Work that could have been done by any kid.

Not if the kid is presenting the entire research project as his own and as a solo effort. That’s just blatant cheating.

[Anonymous]

My son did a very successful science project, and did do the work on his own, but was able to access tools and facilities through a family connection. He also would never have had the idea without meeting and talking with a friend of our family.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:"The services pair high schoolers with academic mentors for 10-15 weeks to produce research papers. Online services typically shape the topic, direction and duration of the project, and urge students to complete and publish a paper regardless of how fruitful the exploration has been. “Publication specialists” then help steer the papers into a dizzying array of online journals and preprint platforms. Almost any high school paper can find an outlet.

You can beat on science research kids if that's how you get your fun. You can beat on sports kids or music kids or arts kids. Everyone's kid has trophies and prizes and acknowledgments for involvement in different activities. None of them are Mozart but some certainly do have a stronger interest or talent in an activity than others and there is nothing wrong with them putting effort into developing it.

They're all just high school students in the process of educating themselves.

Let’s not teach high school students to commit academic fraud. First and foremost.

Spending hundreds of hours learning to clean data and other science research tasks is not committing academic fraud. Is learning how to kick a soccer ball athletic fraud? A lot more kids get into college for being able to kick a ball then knowing how to clean data I can tell you that. And no one is ever going to pay them a red cent for kicking that ball. Whereas you could possibly translate research skills into some kind of financial compensation.

Excuses me? When did he have hundreds of hours to learn to clean data, to learn to train neural networks, learn environmental science (schools usually don’t offer AP Env Science until high school), build web servers and IoT devices?

He learned all this in middle school? By the age of 14? Between doing homework in a highly competitive school and playing a lot of sports?

We all know it’s not realistic. We know kids and their schedules. It’s obvious that someone else did part of this project for him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"The services pair high schoolers with academic mentors for 10-15 weeks to produce research papers. Online services typically shape the topic, direction and duration of the project, and urge students to complete and publish a paper regardless of how fruitful the exploration has been. “Publication specialists” then help steer the papers into a dizzying array of online journals and preprint platforms. Almost any high school paper can find an outlet.

You can beat on science research kids if that's how you get your fun. You can beat on sports kids or music kids or arts kids. Everyone's kid has trophies and prizes and acknowledgments for involvement in different activities. None of them are Mozart but some certainly do have a stronger interest or talent in an activity than others and there is nothing wrong with them putting effort into developing it.

They're all just high school students in the process of educating themselves.

Let’s not teach high school students to commit academic fraud. First and foremost.

Spending hundreds of hours learning to clean data and other science research tasks is not committing academic fraud. Is learning how to kick a soccer ball athletic fraud? A lot more kids get into college for being able to kick a ball then knowing how to clean data I can tell you that. And no one is ever going to pay them a red cent for kicking that ball. Whereas you could possibly translate research skills into some kind of financial compensation.

Excuses me? When did he have hundreds of hours to learn to clean data, to learn to train neural networks, learn environmental science (schools usually don’t offer AP Env Science until high school), build web servers and IoT devices?

He learned all this in middle school? By the age of 14? Between doing homework in a highly competitive school and playing a lot of sports?

We all know it’s not realistic. We know kids and their schedules. It’s obvious that someone else did part of this project for him.

Put a link to the journal that accepted and published this amazing research paper some posters can understand what the heck you're talking about.

[Anonymous]

Aside from the unequal access to resources, these are educational projects. Few are science that any professional would care about, and almost none of those that are are important to. Every expert in a field sees that these projects have no scientific value, but are learning experiences with a huge layer of hyperbole and deception on top.

The contests themselves are part of the fraud, promoting junk or boring research as groundbreaking because they are hyping their own contests.

Basically it's an promotional partnership between the contest sponsors who want exposure, organizers who want prestige, kids who want competitive college admissions, and colleges who want a prestigious reputation. They all scratch each others' back, and since you can't compare a quantum lhysics project to a geology project, the awards are totally subjective and arbitrary.

The good news is that the super elite colleges have been gamed to death and severely lost their undergrad reputational quality, so your kid will do great at a tier below and competing for a job on their merits.


Except that employers and investors are also in on the scam, using brand name colleges for their own marketing.

At the end of the day, it's up to the public (and thank you MAGA for helping out with this!) to disregard and discredit all this phony elitness.

[Anonymous]

Difference of sports is that you can't just get on a championship team in cruising to college get on a championship team and cruising to college recruiting.

You do have to pay to get into the combines to get on display, but at least then you're evaluated by scouts on your performance.

[Anonymous]

Why is this thread so fixated on this one project that had problems. You seem to be implying that all high school students are incapable of learning any science research skills. These are not 5-year-olds. I can't speak for your high school, but by the time you get to be a senior in our district, you may have 9 or 10 science and math courses under your belt. These kids are learning material that I covered in college in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of these projects really are a scam—just like volunteer work. I recently googled a few of the valedictorians in my area. Most names popped up with beautiful websites dedicated to the nonprofits they “started.” Designs of sites looked eerily similar as well. Says a lot about the colleges who fall for it.

To be fair, and I'm not saying these nonprofits are legit, the purpose of a nonprofit is not to lovingly hand craft an artisan website. The website is just a brochure and contact method.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Education should be free and merit based

Education should be free and need/opportunity based.

School is not a competition!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. The science fair kids always have mentors. Usually they are paid and do most of the work while explaining to the kids what’s going on. I learned this when someone my DD looked up to placed in a science fair.

Now I know another kid who placed in last year’s state science fair who did not have a mentor. Or so he says. Dad is in tech. Son is really not that intellectual and cannot tell how why he started the project or what he did. I suspect dad (works at Microsoft) did it.

People that work at Microsoft are allowed to have kids and they're allowed to teach their kids about data and data collection and how to clean up data and how to manipulate data and how to analyze data. Presumably someone taught the person working at Microsoft those skills and they are allowed to teach them to someone else.

Pretty sure Venus Williams is allowed to teach her kid how to play tennis and Taylor Swift is allowed to teach her kid how to compose a song and Stephen King is allowed to teach his kid how to write a story.

But Venus Williams would not be allowed to go play a game for her kid so kid can win a medal, right? There’s no equivalence here!

That and Venus Williams started training at the age of 4 and played in her first official pro tournament was at 14. It took her 10 years to train to that level and I’m sure it was 40 hours a week or more.

Are you telling me your kid started data science, IoT, web technologies and environmental science in elementary school and got to professional level at the age of 14?

Spare me from this BS. I know how long it takes.

The level of time required to become world class in one of the most popular activities in the world is very different from the level of time required to be able to do research that wins a competition for high school students

No. Research is serious business that takes years to learn the trade. From acquiring basic competence in the subject, to being able to even read conference/journal papers to understand what has been done, that typically requires at least a few graduate-level classes. The individual then needs to come up with ideas that can potentially advance the state of the art, realize those ideas by designing/performing experiments or developing a theory, and turn the results obtained into publishable papers that can fend off criticisms from reviewers. That's a long journey filled with blood, sweat, and frustration dotted with occasional Eureka moments. Can a high schooler do it in an independent fashion? Sure, there are Bill Gates, Terrence Tao, and the likes among us, but they are 1 in 100,000. Not 1000 in 100,000 who apply to top schools each year and claim to have done published research.

You need to relax. There are over 3 and 1/2 million kids that come out of high school every year and a very small percentage of them are interested in science research at all. Of the very small number some do poor quality projects, some do average quality and some do high quality projects. You've got yourself in a snit over a tiny amount of high school kids.

It's not the number of kids involved, nor the quality of the research produced, that's the issue. It's ethic and honesty. Are you okay with kids unethically claiming they have published research papers when in reality all they did was the equivalent to washing test tubes? They barely knew the subject, did not contribute a single ounce of thought, did not write a single sentence for the papers, and yet are dishonestly listed as co-authors because their parents pay for the opportunities or hook them up with friends/colleagues willing to look the other way?

Can you please Google order of authorship on scientific papers. There are hundreds of different scientific publications and they all have different guidelines and rules, but in general someone that makes a small contribution comes at the end of the list. No one with any knowledge would be confusing that person with any kind of lead researcher.

Order of authorship depends on scientific areas. Some do alphabetical, some put corresponding author at the very end, some order based on decreasing contributions. The problem is not the ordering. It's the fact that being co-authors makes kids seem more impressive than they really are. Wow, this 16-year-old published a paper in journal of XYZ! When in reality they were merely cleaning data or doing other mindless, mundane work. Work that could have been done by any kid.

Not if the kid is presenting the entire research project as his own and as a solo effort. That’s just blatant cheating.

+1. You nailed it. Many kids describe the work in their college apps as "I did this, I did that," completely downplaying the assisting PhD students, postdocs, and/or research scientists as if there weren't even there. Some would go so far in stretching the truth as "One day I came up with this idea of ...." AOs are not trained to recognize such exaggerations. Heck, even faculty members in the same department but different sub-areas might not recognize them. How many kids and their parents would actually admit "All I did was cleaning test tubes or moving files between computers or cleaning data by deleting rows in an Excel spreadsheet"?