Reply to Tell High School Students to Stop Contacting Professors

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have never heard an AO say they require research/mentoring. The consultants must be pushing this. [/quote]

\What are they supposed to do if they don't have connections or programs available? Why aren't adults supporting these kids more effectively?
[/quote]

"Supporting these kids" requires resources.  Professors are paid to teach at university level and do research.  It's a separate set of skills to teach high schools -- time intensive and the opposite of productive for faculty.

Even working with PhD students, with whom we are expected to coauthor peer reviewed papers, is an incredible time suck.  Working with PhDs makes sense, because they have studied the literature in the field and are at least prepared to do research.  High school students, with their limited knowledge bases, are not capable of doing research that pushes the field forward in social science or the humanities.  Lab science may be different, but with limited exceptions, I doubt it.

I think high school students would be much better served by learning their prospective fields before trying to push them forward.[/quote]

Some schools require that high school students apply to specific majors/programs. How precisely do you propose that high school students should be "learning their prospective fields" if there are not programs available and universities aren't interested or set up to do so? Why aren't universities and high schools developing bridge programs highlighting what engineering or programming or ecology fields are like and building lab skills for talented kids?

Hint: the answer is that universities are more interested in pay-to-play than building a talent pipeline.
[/quote]

Umm -- learning their prospective fields. Maybe take a course?  Or just do the reading for a course?

If you're angry that admissions officers seem to weigh 'research experience' too heavily, I agree. Where and how high school kids can learn bench skills, I don't know. Maybe in high school labs?

But I'm not a bench scientist. I am a social scientist. There's no effective way to integrate high school students into serious research.  In fact, only the most advanced undergraduate students do original research, usually in a thesis.  Occasionally, undergraduate assistants can do low level tasks (coding interview responses, putting together a book index), but most faculty members will double check every bit of student work. Paying Lumiere to get a PhD student to 'advise' (or more likely, run) a research project that is signed by a high school student is a waste of time, money, and intellectual effort.[/quote]

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