<p>The grand prize winner had a completely new, non lab based idea. There was a paper using a similar method some years ago but his idea was completely unrelated to the research focuses of the lab in which he did his project. The 50k winners- I know at least the one from Canada; his idea was his own (developed an algorithm to search microbits of information). He now attends Caltech. </p>
<p>I can give more personal examples too, but I won’t. There ARE good kids out there.</p>
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<p>Sir, you are very cynical. I don’t know- the process of getting to ISEF from Canada is very intense so maybe we avoid some of the biases. We also have less established summer programs, so perhaps that prevents “Intel factories”.</p>
<p>I think directing research is great but I think this is an area (at least in some fields) that you can’t do unless you have a good deal of experience. Will a 15 year old, albeit a brilliant one really know how long things take and what’s possible or not? I doubt it and I know lots of brilliant people. Something that works easily in theory (ex. cloning) takes months in reality. It’s hard to develop precise, specific aims that can be completed and give meaningful results without some help. </p>
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<p>There’s a great competition called the Sanofi-BioGENEius challenge that lets kid submit proposals that get read and reviewed. Then, the kids do lots of revisions and get steered towards a workable project with a mentor. I think it’s a good model and I think this tends to generally happen, regardless if the student is doing that particular competition or not.</p>
<p>Asked and answered. How do you identify what’s a “bigger contribution”? Becoming an officer in a club? Being an actor in the play? Being the carpenter or the lighting director? Writing for the newspaper? Canning for charity? Dancing in a dance marathon? How about just being a nice person and helping others out in ways large and small? There is this blunt way of thinking that some of you seem to have that thinks that everything in life can be quantified and measured, which just seems so … I don’t know, how did you fall in love with your spouse, did you quantify and measure her attributes?</p>
<p>College alum – that’s the whole POINT … Colleges don’t want to SEE paint-by-number community service projects / fundraisers, and the “rewards” go to those who do something different! I don’t know how many times it needs to be said that to the lemmings do not go the spoils.</p>
<p>Well, I disagree. In a previous post, you mentioned that ivy adcoms are smart enough to not think a community service project in a third world country was a big deal since it was basically an exotic vacation for rich kids. Well, it worked for an awfully long time. Like a decade or two. I remember people doing this when i was a high school student. The paint-by-number community service project in Belize doesn’t work anymore, but there are still plenty of dumb things which do still work. For one, you can stay in your own community and do the same thing.</p>
<p>I think the vetting is pretty poor for leadership/community service type projects.</p>
<p>Well, if there are so many “pretty dumb things that still work,” then I guess everyone has their answer to the black box of elite college admissions, so we really don’t need any plaintive threads about “but I don’t know what they judge on!”</p>
<p>from PG: * Colleges don’t want to SEE paint-by-number community service projects / fundraisers, and the “rewards” go to those who do something different! I don’t know how many times it needs to be said that to the lemmings do not go the spoils. *</p>
<p>I’d add this: what adcoms like is something meaningful. And, what that kid selects as meaningful- and how he/she describes and weighs and what the rest of the picture is…says oodles about what this kid is about. </p>
<p>About those Africa trips. omg. C.alum says: For one, you can stay in your own community and do the same thing. Problem: many don’t. Those trips are expensive, they seem exotic and the sort of kids who think they replace community work at home- and then, what they write about them…</p>
<p>That is pretty cynical. I’ve heard those trips really are eye-opening for their participants. The poverty here in the US is nothing like what is experienced in many exotic countries, so the students who see it really do gain a valuable insight to what is really going on in our world.</p>
<p>*How many paint-by-number community service projects/fundraisers do we see every year? *</p>
<p>Too many. How many on CC? Too many. Fundraisers, Africa trips, walkathons, Key Club VP of NHS-- that’s not it. Can you see a qualitative difference between a walkathon and roll up your sleeves efforts?</p>
<p>OMG, Bay, I have seen what they write about them.</p>
<p>And, if it does open the eyes of some kids who can afford that sort of trip, why NOTHING else at home? Sorry, my soapbox: there is no sense that one sort of community in need better deserves your efforts than another.</p>
<p>Really, what sort of kid (I mean it) needs to go to Africa to see need around him? What does that say?</p>
<p>“That is pretty cynical. I’ve heard those trips really are eye-opening for their participants. The poverty here in the US is nothing like what is experienced in many exotic countries, so the students who see it really do gain a valuable insight to what is really going on in our world.”</p>
<p>A trip to San Tropez is eye opening too.</p>
<p>The question is whether those kids doing their community service in Africa are going to do anything with that knowledge other than spend $3,000 to do $300 worth of work then jet off on a safari. I see too many kids who go this route then come home and reminisce about their brush with poverty. There’s real poverty here too. It’s just not as comfortable to confront because it’s a whole lot harder for kids to distance themselves from the family using the food pantry or winter coat drive in their own community than the starving kid in Africa.</p>
<p>A kid who takes this kind of trip then turns it into lasting action at home deserves praise and attention. In my experience these kids are few and far between.</p>
<p>Bay, where do you think they stay? In a family hut? Do you know what these trips cost?
It isn’t 3k. Much more.</p>
<p>Bay, we’re talking college admissions, kids whose apps show only that one effort and who write about some of that in naive ways.</p>
<p>There are kids with ties to their family homelands who make some well-considered efforts in those countries- the kids who fundraise, collect medical supplies, help found a clinic and return, several times, are in contact with local medical personnel, advocate, etc. It is impressive. I never berudge them the famly wealth that allows such work. That’s different. Other good examples, too. But, the most impressive start with compassion and a sense of their own energy and ability to help- NOT that it’s a chance to “see how the other half lives.”</p>
<p>Yes, that is very true. And that is why **removing the entire admission component ** will help separate the … truly passionate kids from the ones who are part of high schools that have an excessive focus on the competition (read the type of HS with a 30,000 printer) and are “inheriting” research projects pushed by adults for their own purposes. But again, removing the gamesmanship and padding of resumes would simply decapitate the competition as most would … stay away. Would a competition for the truly passionate not be better? </p>
<p>I am not criticizing the spirit of the competitions and the possible interest they generate among the younger minds. I am highly critical of the syndrome that compels PARENTS to build the little race cars and send their kids with 3-D projects to kindergarden. And equally critical of the rate race that our Science Fairs have become.</p>
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<p>Yes, and the winner was an absolutely brilliant kid. Just as the girl from Wyoming or Montana who developed an idea that required no hyper lab. Now, compare this to what the competition has turned into in schools within a short drive of Stanford or a short train to the “competition” mills a la Stony Brook. The grand prize might escape the mercenaries, but the absolute numbers of such packaged projects in the semi and final rounds speak volumes about how effective (and rigged) they are. </p>
<p>I can give more personal examples too, but I won’t. There ARE good kids out there.
I don’t know- the process of getting to ISEF from Canada is very intense so maybe we avoid some of the biases. We also have less established summer programs, so perhaps that prevents “Intel factories”.</p>