How can teenagers create such science projects?

[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.

+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"?

Why don't you find some colleges to apply to where the admissions officers are not morons? You think they have no familiarity with science kids? Pretty sure they know that the prima ballerina in local production of swan lake is not going to be doing a world ballet tour. Doesn't mean they don't value the progress of the ballerina and they might even want her in their college.

AOs are generally an astute bunch in smelling out fakeries from a mile away. But they can't possibly come close to knowing every area of human endeavors (no one can, obviously), especially with scientific research.

When a kid's description of their research involves a bunch of technical jargons, do you think AOs would say "Nah, this result has been known since the 90s," or "No way, this result is too good to be true under this experimental condition," or "I doubt your professor would let you use this 3-million dollar equipment to do what you just described"?

The more likely AOs' reaction would be "Okay, I don't know what the hell you're saying, but I'm gonna take your word for it. Great discovery, excellent description, I'm gonna give you the max score on ECs." The kid might be discovering that water is wet but through the use of fancy technical jargons plus some good writing, they could easily create a mirage.

Not in my experience and not what I've seen written by experts in college admissions. At least for a very competitive college they're going to want verification. They want to see top grades and top rigor in science and math for years, recommendations from math or science teachers and from mentors.

If it is a top institution, some one off poorly verified project done over a random summer is not going to cut it. They have familiarity with some of the well-known and established organizations and certainly with high schools that have run science research programs for some time. If they are not familiar with the competition or the organization or the publication, they're going to seek out some information.

The Regeneron grand prize is $250K and the Nobel prize shared by 3 people is about $333K. The Regeneron prize has enough weight to get you into where ever you want to go. Any of the other Regeneron winners also have similar weight - you don't pass one of these up. You don't question one of these people. You just verify they won. The thread is mainly about are the submissions/winners legit?

Regeneron gave a $50,000 prize to someone who just copied pictures from a published paper.

If they just barely caught that, they're almost surely missing a lot of more subtle fraud.

Regeneron is an advertising campaign for the company. The whole contest is a sham.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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"?

Why don't you find some colleges to apply to where the admissions officers are not morons? You think they have no familiarity with science kids? Pretty sure they know that the prima ballerina in local production of swan lake is not going to be doing a world ballet tour. Doesn't mean they don't value the progress of the ballerina and they might even want her in their college.

AOs are generally an astute bunch in smelling out fakeries from a mile away. But they can't possibly come close to knowing every area of human endeavors (no one can, obviously), especially with scientific research.

When a kid's description of their research involves a bunch of technical jargons, do you think AOs would say "Nah, this result has been known since the 90s," or "No way, this result is too good to be true under this experimental condition," or "I doubt your professor would let you use this 3-million dollar equipment to do what you just described"?

The more likely AOs' reaction would be "Okay, I don't know what the hell you're saying, but I'm gonna take your word for it. Great discovery, excellent description, I'm gonna give you the max score on ECs." The kid might be discovering that water is wet but through the use of fancy technical jargons plus some good writing, they could easily create a mirage.

Not in my experience and not what I've seen written by experts in college admissions. At least for a very competitive college they're going to want verification. They want to see top grades and top rigor in science and math for years, recommendations from math or science teachers and from mentors.

If it is a top institution, some one off poorly verified project done over a random summer is not going to cut it. They have familiarity with some of the well-known and established organizations and certainly with high schools that have run science research programs for some time. If they are not familiar with the competition or the organization or the publication, they're going to seek out some information.

The Regeneron grand prize is $250K and the Nobel prize shared by 3 people is about $333K. The Regeneron prize has enough weight to get you into where ever you want to go. Any of the other Regeneron winners also have similar weight - you don't pass one of these up. You don't question one of these people. You just verify they won. The thread is mainly about are the submissions/winners legit?

Regeneron gave a $50,000 prize to someone who just copied pictures from a published paper.

If they just barely caught that, they're almost surely missing a lot of more subtle fraud.

Regeneron is an advertising campaign for the company. The whole contest is a sham.

Ikr? You should probably not bother with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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"?

Why don't you find some colleges to apply to where the admissions officers are not morons? You think they have no familiarity with science kids? Pretty sure they know that the prima ballerina in local production of swan lake is not going to be doing a world ballet tour. Doesn't mean they don't value the progress of the ballerina and they might even want her in their college.

AOs are generally an astute bunch in smelling out fakeries from a mile away. But they can't possibly come close to knowing every area of human endeavors (no one can, obviously), especially with scientific research.

When a kid's description of their research involves a bunch of technical jargons, do you think AOs would say "Nah, this result has been known since the 90s," or "No way, this result is too good to be true under this experimental condition," or "I doubt your professor would let you use this 3-million dollar equipment to do what you just described"?

The more likely AOs' reaction would be "Okay, I don't know what the hell you're saying, but I'm gonna take your word for it. Great discovery, excellent description, I'm gonna give you the max score on ECs." The kid might be discovering that water is wet but through the use of fancy technical jargons plus some good writing, they could easily create a mirage.

Not in my experience and not what I've seen written by experts in college admissions. At least for a very competitive college they're going to want verification. They want to see top grades and top rigor in science and math for years, recommendations from math or science teachers and from mentors.

If it is a top institution, some one off poorly verified project done over a random summer is not going to cut it. They have familiarity with some of the well-known and established organizations and certainly with high schools that have run science research programs for some time. If they are not familiar with the competition or the organization or the publication, they're going to seek out some information.

The Regeneron grand prize is $250K and the Nobel prize shared by 3 people is about $333K. The Regeneron prize has enough weight to get you into where ever you want to go. Any of the other Regeneron winners also have similar weight - you don't pass one of these up. You don't question one of these people. You just verify they won. The thread is mainly about are the submissions/winners legit?

Regeneron gave a $50,000 prize to someone who just copied pictures from a published paper.

If they just barely caught that, they're almost surely missing a lot of more subtle fraud.

Regeneron is an advertising campaign for the company. The whole contest is a sham.

I saw the news when it was initially released, but what were the consequences? Did they take the prize back? Was the kid kicked out of college? I'm sure the Regeneron winner got into an elite college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, why is college so expensive in the first place? I couldn't care less if Jimmy’s mom—who happens to be a lab scientist—wrote his paper and paid $100,000 a year just for a name-brand degree. At this rate of job offshoring, by the time Jimmy graduates, both he and his mom might be out of a job.

OP here. The kid I started the thread about ia Indian. I can see this - this kid who cheated his way into Ivy then become CEOs and CTOs and outsources the science jobs to India.

Full circle.

lol Indians who attend high school and college in the US are very unlikely to outsource jobs to India.

Lol. They do it all day long.
Sundar Pichai went to Stanford by the way.

And Google doesn't outsource software to India. So you're proving their point.

Google insources software in huge offices in India.

Indeed, their AI sucks big time....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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"?

Why don't you find some colleges to apply to where the admissions officers are not morons? You think they have no familiarity with science kids? Pretty sure they know that the prima ballerina in local production of swan lake is not going to be doing a world ballet tour. Doesn't mean they don't value the progress of the ballerina and they might even want her in their college.

AOs are generally an astute bunch in smelling out fakeries from a mile away. But they can't possibly come close to knowing every area of human endeavors (no one can, obviously), especially with scientific research.

When a kid's description of their research involves a bunch of technical jargons, do you think AOs would say "Nah, this result has been known since the 90s," or "No way, this result is too good to be true under this experimental condition," or "I doubt your professor would let you use this 3-million dollar equipment to do what you just described"?

The more likely AOs' reaction would be "Okay, I don't know what the hell you're saying, but I'm gonna take your word for it. Great discovery, excellent description, I'm gonna give you the max score on ECs." The kid might be discovering that water is wet but through the use of fancy technical jargons plus some good writing, they could easily create a mirage.

Not in my experience and not what I've seen written by experts in college admissions. At least for a very competitive college they're going to want verification. They want to see top grades and top rigor in science and math for years, recommendations from math or science teachers and from mentors.

If it is a top institution, some one off poorly verified project done over a random summer is not going to cut it. They have familiarity with some of the well-known and established organizations and certainly with high schools that have run science research programs for some time. If they are not familiar with the competition or the organization or the publication, they're going to seek out some information.

The Regeneron grand prize is $250K and the Nobel prize shared by 3 people is about $333K. The Regeneron prize has enough weight to get you into where ever you want to go. Any of the other Regeneron winners also have similar weight - you don't pass one of these up. You don't question one of these people. You just verify they won. The thread is mainly about are the submissions/winners legit?

Regeneron gave a $50,000 prize to someone who just copied pictures from a published paper.

If they just barely caught that, they're almost surely missing a lot of more subtle fraud.

Regeneron is an advertising campaign for the company. The whole contest is a sham.

I saw the news when it was initially released, but what were the consequences? Did they take the prize back? Was the kid kicked out of college? I'm sure the Regeneron winner got into an elite college.

Google it. You'll see that in spite of all the nonsense being posted on here, cheating gets you a whole lot of nothing.

[Anonymous]

So I’m the PO who suspected a kid’s dad had done his science fair project that placed at our state fair. Spoke to the kid again and asked why he did it. No answer. I asked again what motivated him to do this project without a mentor? When did it click for him that he wanted to do it? He pretty much admitted it really wasn’t his thing (although he did not say anything about his dad and so did not ask) and he was just involved in some coding. 🤦‍♀️

[Anonymous]

My kid got into an online flame war over something, "so stupid" "so dumb" were thrown around by my kid. It turned out the other party is a professor at a T50 college defending his published paper and supporting data. He ended up asking my kid to contribute to the paper that had a PhD student and two MS students also on that project. Had a very limited role specific to a small subsection but got my kid's name on the paper. It did not make it to the EA deadline but just made it so that it was included in RD applications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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"?

Why don't you find some colleges to apply to where the admissions officers are not morons? You think they have no familiarity with science kids? Pretty sure they know that the prima ballerina in local production of swan lake is not going to be doing a world ballet tour. Doesn't mean they don't value the progress of the ballerina and they might even want her in their college.

AOs are generally an astute bunch in smelling out fakeries from a mile away. But they can't possibly come close to knowing every area of human endeavors (no one can, obviously), especially with scientific research.

When a kid's description of their research involves a bunch of technical jargons, do you think AOs would say "Nah, this result has been known since the 90s," or "No way, this result is too good to be true under this experimental condition," or "I doubt your professor would let you use this 3-million dollar equipment to do what you just described"?

The more likely AOs' reaction would be "Okay, I don't know what the hell you're saying, but I'm gonna take your word for it. Great discovery, excellent description, I'm gonna give you the max score on ECs." The kid might be discovering that water is wet but through the use of fancy technical jargons plus some good writing, they could easily create a mirage.

Not in my experience and not what I've seen written by experts in college admissions. At least for a very competitive college they're going to want verification. They want to see top grades and top rigor in science and math for years, recommendations from math or science teachers and from mentors.

If it is a top institution, some one off poorly verified project done over a random summer is not going to cut it. They have familiarity with some of the well-known and established organizations and certainly with high schools that have run science research programs for some time. If they are not familiar with the competition or the organization or the publication, they're going to seek out some information.

The Regeneron grand prize is $250K and the Nobel prize shared by 3 people is about $333K. The Regeneron prize has enough weight to get you into where ever you want to go. Any of the other Regeneron winners also have similar weight - you don't pass one of these up. You don't question one of these people. You just verify they won. The thread is mainly about are the submissions/winners legit?

Regeneron gave a $50,000 prize to someone who just copied pictures from a published paper.

If they just barely caught that, they're almost surely missing a lot of more subtle fraud.

Regeneron is an advertising campaign for the company. The whole contest is a sham.

I saw the news when it was initially released, but what were the consequences? Did they take the prize back? Was the kid kicked out of college? I'm sure the Regeneron winner got into an elite college.

Google it. You'll see that in spite of all the nonsense being posted on here, cheating gets you a whole lot of nothing.

That was a bow shot - a warning shot to the others that also cheated. If you google the winning titles or the abstracts there is typically a link to a major published paper. The kid that got caught went so far to say he did field study discovering the bacteria and then using duplicate pictures from the paper. There are still a lot of cheats that they didn't go after.

Nothing happened to the cheat BTW - he just decided to remove his entry into the Science Fair.

There are a few good entrants and good for them. Like athletes - you have steroid abusing cheats and you have gifted genetics + hard work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid got into an online flame war over something, "so stupid" "so dumb" were thrown around by my kid. It turned out the other party is a professor at a T50 college defending his published paper and supporting data. He ended up asking my kid to contribute to the paper that had a PhD student and two MS students also on that project. Had a very limited role specific to a small subsection but got my kid's name on the paper. It did not make it to the EA deadline but just made it so that it was included in RD applications.

Haha! I love this so much.

[Anonymous]

Don't assume that all high school projects are fraudulent.

TRUE STORY: I know a recent college applicant who, as a high school junior, actually placed a square peg in a round hole !

Granted, a large hammer was involved. And, granted, his dad had a collection of very large hammers. And, granted, his parents knew a very large professional football player who worked the very large hammer involved in the project.

Nevertheless, I swear that the kid, as a junior in high school, conceived the project and oversaw the project.

So there--not every great accomplishment is a fraud.

[Anonymous]

My student has a friend who went to Stanford. Friend’s advice based on what he did — embellish everything! Make it sound like you did way more than you actually did. My advice — he does not know what got him in regardless of the comments on file. He was hooked. You are not. Do you want to risk getting in and then having that rescinded because they find out? I know there are kids who can do that and sleep well at night. I wouldn’t be able to.

[Anonymous]

It is easier to just convince yourself that all HS research is fraudulent just because your child is not interested in research and cannot conceive of students who might actually be interested and willing to put in the effort.

The idea that the system is all a fraud is an easier narrative for people to accept than that their own child is not interested or capable for that kind of work.

Sure there is some fraud and the fact that it is getting exposed is a good sign.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is easier to just convince yourself that all HS research is fraudulent just because your child is not interested in research and cannot conceive of students who might actually be interested and willing to put in the effort.

The idea that the system is all a fraud is an easier narrative for people to accept than that their own child is not interested or capable for that kind of work.

Sure there is some fraud and the fact that it is getting exposed is a good sign.

Yes. there are legit ones but do this before dismissing it; the Science Fair is not a book report - it's a demonstration of the scientific process with emphasis on original work. Grey areas are being part of a professional research team.

Now do this experiment - I'm not going to out the areas HS students by name.

1. Go to this site: https://www.fcps.edu/2025-science-fair-category-awards
2. Take a title and plug it into here: https://scholar.google.com/

And see the papers that show up. They take the data, the findings, the methodology, ask an expert (Mom or Dad), and make it into a science fair project. The kid who got caught did the exact same thing as most of the other winners did. They are not prodigies that advanced science or found a cure for cancer.

If you want to make it into a book report then change the rules and we can play that game. We'll change the Science Fair to Science Understanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is easier to just convince yourself that all HS research is fraudulent just because your child is not interested in research and cannot conceive of students who might actually be interested and willing to put in the effort.

The idea that the system is all a fraud is an easier narrative for people to accept than that their own child is not interested or capable for that kind of work.

Sure there is some fraud and the fact that it is getting exposed is a good sign.

Exactly! Typical DCUM copium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is easier to just convince yourself that all HS research is fraudulent just because your child is not interested in research and cannot conceive of students who might actually be interested and willing to put in the effort.

The idea that the system is all a fraud is an easier narrative for people to accept than that their own child is not interested or capable for that kind of work.

Sure there is some fraud and the fact that it is getting exposed is a good sign.

Yes. there are legit ones but do this before dismissing it; the Science Fair is not a book report - it's a demonstration of the scientific process with emphasis on original work. Grey areas are being part of a professional research team.

Now do this experiment - I'm not going to out the areas HS students by name.

1. Go to this site: https://www.fcps.edu/2025-science-fair-category-awards
2. Take a title and plug it into here: https://scholar.google.com/

And see the papers that show up. They take the data, the findings, the methodology, ask an expert (Mom or Dad), and make it into a science fair project. The kid who got caught did the exact same thing as most of the other winners did. They are not prodigies that advanced science or found a cure for cancer.

If you want to make it into a book report then change the rules and we can play that game. We'll change the Science Fair to Science Understanding.

Seriously give it a rest. HS students aren't claiming to cure cancer and the judges are not even remotely confused that projects are seriously advancing cancer research.