Reply to Research by HS kids?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Research by HS kids?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This board often claims published research as a necessary requirement for top college admissions.  Has anyone read this research? I know a lot of smart kids and they don’t seem ready for real research.  So I guess I call BS and wonder why colleges are seeking this? I used to work at a prestigious job, and I can tell you, the college interns were not ready to write memos, let alone research.  And, the ones who thought they were ready for high level critical thinking were, quite frankly, the worst. So, who are these HS kids?

I have heard of kids being research assistants in labs (usually because an adult helped them get organized) but only doing what they were told, not driving any of the critical thinking (which actually seems appropriate for a high school kid).  I have also read published papers in the humanities written by high school students, and while fine, I didn’t think they were setting the world on fire (again, the papers felt expected and appropriate).  This includes my kid, btw.

Anyway, I find the idea of truly independent, cutting-edge HS research suspect. Are we talking past one another?

[/quote]

I think that, most of the time, what happens is that those kids go to university-sponsored summer science programs for high school students. The universities help the kids put together research projects. Maybe a lot of the kids work in supporting roles, or do nice projects that sputter out. Maybe the great kids finish projects and publish papers in what adults think of as bad journals. Maybe an occasional spectacular kid actually publishes a serious paper in a selective, peer-reviewed journal.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics