Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 09:20     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:Of course it’s unfair. Life is unfair. People arguing that high schoolers can do legit, valuable research have lost perspective. Kids who get these opportunities have monied parents backing them up, one way or another. And the parents will defend the system because it works for them.


This.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 09:00     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
What about this one?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/14-year-old-scientist-heman-bekele-on-his-quest-to-fight-skin-cancer-with-soap
Fair or unfair? Rich or poor?
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 08:27     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:I saw this Reddit comment about research in high school (https://old.reddit.com/r/AskProfessors/comments/1tg9z5l/high_schooler_interning_at_a_toptier_research/omfaesb/):

“Sigh. High school students shouldn't be doing this.

Maybe just enjoy what's left of your childhood?

And don't participate in things that pad your college applications in a way that's totally unfair to other students who aren't connected to/don't live near/can't afford/don't know about intern opportunities at research universities.
But really this is on the professor who's supporting this nonsense.”

So if students shouldn’t be doing this, what extracurriculars should they do? Even things like sports or robotics favor the privilege


What’s left of your childhood?

100 years ago these kids would be working in factories and on farms. Some would be married with families.This notion of some mythical, sacrosanct “childhood” is a modern invention.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 08:24     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Our high school treats internships as a class, so they were the ones who placed the kids. Seems fair to me.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 08:01     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's not fairness that's the main issue, it's pay to play, nepotism or outright fraud. Rather than student work and merit. It's the same thing with nonprofits. Easily faked or carried out by parents.

High school research is basically an admissions smell. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is off, but you want to check extra carefully.

Unless you can prove it, it’s just witch hunting.
Of course, you’d like to dumb down everything after you’ve dumbed down SATs and GPAs so kids are not differentiable by any objective measures.


Virtually all HS ‘research’ is garbage and AdComs know it.


“Virtually all”?

False.



It’s obviously true that virtually all “research” conducted by teenagers is garbage, even if your little genius is producing more original research at age 16 than all the PhDs at all the R1s in the country. And you agree. After all, you believe that it’s your little Larlo’s extremely unusual talents that should make him so attractive to the kind of hyper-selective colleges that will reject virtually all applicants.


False.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 07:52     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Of course it’s unfair. Life is unfair. People arguing that high schoolers can do legit, valuable research have lost perspective. Kids who get these opportunities have monied parents backing them up, one way or another. And the parents will defend the system because it works for them.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 07:42     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
This is why my lab sponsors teen and college researchers and provides a stipend. Is the research they're doing valuable? Not really.

But are we teaching kids labs skills and getting them interested in STEM, and then getting first crack at hiring them out of college? Yep.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 07:36     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's not fairness that's the main issue, it's pay to play, nepotism or outright fraud. Rather than student work and merit. It's the same thing with nonprofits. Easily faked or carried out by parents.

High school research is basically an admissions smell. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is off, but you want to check extra carefully.

Unless you can prove it, it’s just witch hunting.
Of course, you’d like to dumb down everything after you’ve dumbed down SATs and GPAs so kids are not differentiable by any objective measures.


Virtually all HS ‘research’ is garbage and AdComs know it.


“Virtually all”?

False.



It’s obviously true that virtually all “research” conducted by teenagers is garbage, even if your little genius is producing more original research at age 16 than all the PhDs at all the R1s in the country. And you agree. After all, you believe that it’s your little Larlo’s extremely unusual talents that should make him so attractive to the kind of hyper-selective colleges that will reject virtually all applicants.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 07:18     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's not fairness that's the main issue, it's pay to play, nepotism or outright fraud. Rather than student work and merit. It's the same thing with nonprofits. Easily faked or carried out by parents.

High school research is basically an admissions smell. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is off, but you want to check extra carefully.

Unless you can prove it, it’s just witch hunting.
Of course, you’d like to dumb down everything after you’ve dumbed down SATs and GPAs so kids are not differentiable by any objective measures.


Virtually all HS ‘research’ is garbage and AdComs know it.


“Virtually all”?

False.


Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 06:11     Subject: Re:If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
The true, underlying issue here is the unresolved societal problem of income inequality.

If we could only solve the income inequality problem, almost every other problem would disappear, including this student-research problem.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 03:52     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:I'm a STEM faculty at an R1 and had I wanted, I could easily get a colleague in a different department to have one of my kids join their research group and tag along on their papers doing nothing of value such as washing test tubes or putting the final touch on an experiment that is already 99% completed. I could return the favor by having one of the colleague's kids join mine. We could easily "wink, wink" and create a win-win situation for both. But I don't do it. Because it's just wrong.

My refusal to play the game probably has hurt my kid in this college application season that just ended. She was waitlisted/rejected by 9 of the 10 t20s but was fortunate enough to get into 1 t10 (that she'll attend). Would research have made a difference, affording her the luxury of choosing between multiple t20s? Who knows. But looking back, I was glad to not have used my position to gain inappropriate advantages for my kid.


Good for you. So what extracurriculars are legit for kids?
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 01:42     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
I'm a STEM faculty at an R1 and had I wanted, I could easily get a colleague in a different department to have one of my kids join their research group and tag along on their papers doing nothing of value such as washing test tubes or putting the final touch on an experiment that is already 99% completed. I could return the favor by having one of the colleague's kids join mine. We could easily "wink, wink" and create a win-win situation for both. But I don't do it. Because it's just wrong.

My refusal to play the game probably has hurt my kid in this college application season that just ended. She was waitlisted/rejected by 9 of the 10 t20s but was fortunate enough to get into 1 t10 (that she'll attend). Would research have made a difference, affording her the luxury of choosing between multiple t20s? Who knows. But looking back, I was glad to not have used my position to gain inappropriate advantages for my kid.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 00:55     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
There are many ways to show intellectual curiosity. One way is research published in a prestigious journal but that is very very difficult to do as a high schooler, and you can't really pay for that level of research and 99.9999 percent of high schoolers aren't quite there.

Do things that are appropriate for a bright high schooler. DC made history documentaries which require historical research and was recognized in competitions. He loved it and did it four years in a row and is headed to an Ivy. My other DC writes historical research papers and luckily was published in a university history journal. He did it two years in a row and is already planning his third paper. They did what they liked, and the recognition was a bonus.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 00:24     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Ideally, nobody needed to do this to stand out if the American education wasn’t intentionally watered down.
Anonymous
Post 05/19/2026 00:22     Subject: If doing research in high school is unfair and puts poorer students at a disadvantage, what extracurriculars are fair?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:It's not fairness that's the main issue, it's pay to play, nepotism or outright fraud. Rather than student work and merit. It's the same thing with nonprofits. Easily faked or carried out by parents.

High school research is basically an admissions smell. It doesn't necessarily mean anything is off, but you want to check extra carefully.

Unless you can prove it, it’s just witch hunting.
Of course, you’d like to dumb down everything after you’ve dumbed down SATs and GPAs so kids are not differentiable by any objective measures.


Virtually all HS ‘research’ is garbage and AdComs know it.

Then, what are you worrying about? I understand you really really hate kids doing research because they got into ivies but your kids didn’t . Maybe, just maybe, your kids were just not good enough.