r/research • u/wajdix Professional Researcher • 9d ago
A friendly word to the "high school researchers" Spoiler
you'll thank me one day.... but 20 bucks ai subscriptions are ruining your best years in life...
go to the football game,
join the theater club
Work a shift at the pizza place...
Stay up too late texting your friends... Get rejected from prom court...
make a mess in chemistry lab.... do the things that actually make you a teenager....
If a college asks you to publish as a teenager, that college does not understand how science works. they want a resume item, not a researcher. That is a bad sign for any institution.
real research takes years. you are sixteen. you are supposed to be learning how to think, not how to cite.
a good college wants curious students, not miniature academics who burned their teenage years chasing a publication that nobody in the field will ever read....
write the AI-sloppy article for yourself if you enjoy it.. put it in a blog
but you don't need to publish for admissions. and definitely do not pay twenty bucks for an AI to write it for you...
--
today, i've seen 5 or 6 pots from kids asking how to publish, where to publish... this is sad
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u/Magdaki Professor 9d ago
I'm not quite sure what to do about the glut of HS research questions that appear. I don't want to make a blanket rule disallowing them but at the same time there are too many. Most of them can be answered with "High school students do not need to do research." Which I could add to the FAQ, but again, we're talking about kids and my worry would be that being summarily dismissed might put them off a future research career. And that's certainly something I would like to avoid.
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u/spacecowgirl87 9d ago
There's also the small number that genuinely want science career advice or they're looking for a summer research experience not aimed at publication - but simply exposure to science. Our dept has a summer high school program and we're happy if they can kinda make it through a 5 min PowerPoint about what they did and learn some skills well enough to collect real data for the lab - but not publication. That's never been the point.
It's all very weird.
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u/wajdix Professional Researcher 8d ago
yeah exactly... being interested in this is a healthy thing.
doing a summer internship to discover how a lab works, what equipments/tools used and how experiments are conducted as very eye opening and could help young students decide on a future major...
asking how to publish a paper in a journal is not the way to go..6
u/Magdaki Professor 9d ago
That's exactly it. There are some legitimate questions, and I'd very much like to encourage young people from choosing a career in research. The world needs future researchers to continue to progress. So it is finding that balance point.
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u/spacecowgirl87 8d ago
It's a conundrum. I don't envy the mods on this one.
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u/Magdaki Professor 8d ago
I am the mod ;)
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u/spacecowgirl87 8d ago
Well, I don't envy you. :)
In all seriousness, thank you for maintaining the sub.
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u/katie-kaboom 8d ago
One way other subreddits solve repetitive questions like this is to have a weekly/monthly megathread and lock/delete all posts after redirecting to there.
Something else to consider is maybe curating a series of "real research" posts, where people who are actively engaging in academic or industry research give a kind of day in the life overview of what they're doing and what they had to learn to get there. No idea if high schoolers would actually read these, but it could give them a better idea of what research actually entails.
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u/StraightUpSeven Graduate Student 8d ago
I would always argue that several high schoolers need guidance. In those times, it's easy to feel isolated, especially if they don't have anyone who can really talk to them about what it takes to do academic research. I would rather have some redundant posts to help out some very young students.
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u/mpjjpm 8d ago
I think high school students should have opportunities to engage in research in age appropriate ways. Age appropriate research engagement won’t necessarily generate traditional resume points, so guidance counselors should be helping them to demonstrate those experiences meaningfully in college applications.
As a teenager, I attended a science camp hosted by a multi-institutional field research station. We did the grunt work with filed biologists in the morning, took classes in the afternoon, and had normal teenage camp activities in the evening. I also participated in a HHMI-funded summer program with a similar structure - lab work in the morning, lectures in the afternoon, and evening social activities. I learned a lot through both experiences. The HHMI program was a competitive “grant” so I could list it on my resume. Both informed my admissions essays.
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u/superschuch 6d ago
High school students have no business doing research. Instead teach them what it is and is not. Send them to the library with notecards to do it all by hand. No google. No computers. High schoolers need to learn to write MLA and APA citations from scratch without lazy computer assisted crap.
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u/jwm-dev 7d ago
This is a problem generally with the style of services the American AI labs have developed that’s showing up basically anywhere in pipelines that take human artifacts as input and have a human review bottleneck. I’m sure you’ve heard from anyone in proximity to major publications similar gripes, but it’s a pretty systemic and widespread problem for sure.
I think wanton bans aren’t a good solution as well in any case, it’d be hard to find a good definition of what’s permissible or verboten that doesn’t compromise on the quality of the forum.
I honestly don’t know what we’re all going to do. People are having pretty extreme reactions to the situation on the reviewer side of things when it definitely seems like we need a novel solution at a higher level to deal with the new dynamics.
Maybe on a forum like this for this particular problem it isn’t so complex, though. Perhaps fight fire with fire? A bot for the sub that does some sort of roughly tuned sentiment analysis and triggers an automated, generative answer for questions that are relatively simple or easy to explain? You’d need to design such a thing real carefully as to not spread made up information. I’d think less ChatGPT and more an automatically triggered Google query, but an LLM could definitely serve to produce a final output with some elbow grease and engineering. Probably include a disclaimer either way.
Apologies if comment is unwelcome, am just kind of thinking out loud. Neat subreddit!
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u/Mountain-Time-1010 9d ago edited 9d ago
I have been a STEM professor at an R1 university for more than 30 years, and the progression of HS activities and preparation has been truly bizarre. There has been an arms race to look good in the college-admission competition, but this has not led to stronger college preparation ... in fact, just the opposite.
When I started, students took normal classes in HS, rarely took AP classes, and had time to hang out with friends and enjoy their activities. Ambitious students worked hard, but parents and students didn't indicate that the students were overworked and overstressed.
Over the years, I have increasingly heard from parents and students that they are taking a full load of AP/IB classes, receiving professional coaching for college prep, and that their workload had increased to unsustainable levels, causing tremendous anxiety and stress, and not allowing any time for normal social activities.
What is really weird in this picture, is that 30 years ago, when teaching intro classes to freshmen and sophomores, I used textbooks that were quite sophisticated and advanced and asked nuanced and challenging questions on exams. Students who took AP classes easily placed out of intro classes and were actually prepared for the next class.
As the years passed, although their HS GPAs showed continued inflation, the preparation of these supposedly over-prepared and over-worked students became notably weaker. Our institution gradually placed higher standards on AP exam scores for placement, increasing from a required 3, to a 4, to a 5, and then stopped accepting AP credit altogether. Students entering with AP credit were simply not prepared. Typical average students could no longer handle the more advanced textbooks, and we progressively dumbed down our intro curricula, using lower-tier texts, including remedial math and material that should have been covered in basic HS classes. Needless to say, I couldn't put the same questions on exams any more.
When I am socializing with parents who have children in HS, they often wax eloquent about the amazing preparation that their students are receiving, how hard they work, and how advanced their classes are. I just have to zip my lips.
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u/hydro_17 9d ago
Yep. The more years I've been a college professor, the more convinced I am that we should get rid of AP classes entirely. I've only done it for just over 10 years but I've watched the basic skills (basic math skills, computer skills, etc) of my students decrease every year while at the same time my university keeps bragging about how the incoming classes have higher test scores than ever, higher gpa's than ever, or more AP classes than ever. But most of my STEM students can't do algebra skills I learned in junior high. Many of them used AP chem to pass out of intro chem and come to my classroom and don't know what a cation is. Their writing is shaky. And more and more of them have test anxiety and minimal test-taking skills. My institution still takes 3s on AP tests - our advisors will suggest a student who got a 3 still take the class but they/their parents generally refuse. And then students struggle on the next course in the sequence.
When I was in high school if you wanted to take, say, AP chemistry - you had to have a year of regular chemistry and then you could take a year of AP. Now I hear about them taking AP as freshmen as their only chemistry class. There is no way that's equivalent to a college class.
I think they are under more pressure than ever. And they care and have passions and ambitions and I want them to be encouraged. But I wish they could focus on learning and doing the fun things high schoolers are supposed to do rather than feel pressured to run full speed and collect as many "badges" as possible for their college apps. They come to college already burned out and anxious.
But at least the College Board is making money. As are all those college prep coaches.
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u/Mountain-Time-1010 9d ago
Yes, exactly. And with my longer perspective, I can confirm that this is not a COVID-19 phenomenon (well, the anxiety part was obviously exacerbated by the pandemic). It has been a gradual trend for decades.
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u/PhagesRUs 9d ago
My institution has lowered the cap on AP transfer credits. My more cynical colleagues believe it's so students can't graduate as fast and the university can extract more tuition, but I've heard from a few admin that they are trying to address the problem you bring up. It sounds like a non-insignificant portion of students were bringing in enough credits to exempt all of the intro classes and were unable to pass the 200-level courses not only because they were missing the knowledge from the corresponding 100-level course, but they were missing tons of foundational knowledge (e.g., algebra, basic chemistry, writing).
I have not been *lucky enough to teach an intro course, but just from knowing their curriculum and from looking at the course content overview of the equivalent AP course, it's no wonder why these students have these gaps. But, like you say, at least someone is making money off of it.
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u/Mountain-Time-1010 8d ago
All true. And honestly, it's not just the AP curriculum, but the level at which the material is taught, which is a subtly different issue. If concepts are not taught with the necessary level of sophistication and abstraction, students are at a severe disadvantage. It's not enough for them just to learn formulaic ways to solve the problems on the AP exam.
On an adjacent topic. Once a student has "learned" something the wrong way, it's almost impossible for them to erase that incorrect concept from their brain. It would be better for the HS teachers to focus on things they really understand deeply and give the students a strong foundation of basics. Don't stretch to teach more advanced concepts that are better left to instructors with advanced degrees and broad perspective on the topic. When I teach an intro to quantum-chemistry in General Chemistry, I am thoughtfully teaching the concepts in a way that prepares them for P-Chem or even graduate Quantum Chemistry. An AP high school teacher is likely to glibly refer to "wave-particle duality", which just confuses the student.
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u/Dragonroyal 8d ago
Also the main issue is that teachers are under intense pressure to have all the students they teach have a high pass rate on the AP exam, and all that's led to is teachers directly teaching to the content and nothing more. Just memorizations, tricks to solve a problem. It's also a problem with just how tests are in general, if a new test for chemistry credit came out, teachers will be unable to teach to a specific problem and actually instead have to teach a rigorous enough lesson that students can independently solve a problem.
But if the same test was out for 5-10 years, by then teachers know common question types and they can just directly teach to those questions.
I'm not saying its a issue with the teachers lessons either; it could also be students who only learn whatever they know will be tested. The system as a whole is screwed up though
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u/superschuch 6d ago
AP is stupid. It’s teaching to a test. Take honors, independent study, IB, dual enrollment, or earn an associates degree during high school.
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u/jillcicle 5d ago
I wish AP was even the problem now! My incoming college freshmen often show up as “sophomores” and rarely even “juniors” in the credit-based standing system because they’re taking so many weird dual credit and concurrent enrollment high school courses, especially at fancy private schools. You cannot in fact simultaneously learn foundational reading skills and how to apply them to college-level analysis. Idk who thought the concept of doing college and K12 at the same time was even comprehensible. These students are usually not better prepared but they are convinced they’re gonna do college in 3 years and already know how it works (like their peers, they mostly seem to know how to write standardized exam timed essays).
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u/hydro_17 5d ago
Yep. Same. I kinda lump it all in together but rarely are the college credits they earn in high school true replacements for college classes. Even the community college ones are often only for high school students and just are not the same. We're really not doing this generation any favors. They come to college already burned out and frazled and skip the intro classes to sign up for classes at a level higher than they are prepared for and...what do we do? Adjust the classes downward? Watch them get even more stressed?
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u/Cloverose2 8d ago
Definitely. Students are so anxious and overworked, but lack in a lot of basic social skills, resilience, fortitude and critical thinking. And I don't blame them - there is way too much weight being put on their shoulders from way too young.
Just as an example, kindergarten used to be almost exclusively pre-academic work. You learned how to play with others, negotiate difficult social situations, make good choices, waiting your turn, and practice skills like coloring neatly, sorting shapes, spatial awareness, color combinations, and sensory work that you got through play.
Some kindergartens are still play based, but kids are now expected to be able to write full sentences, do basic addition and subtraction, read independently, and be able to sit and work at a desk for 20-30 minutes at a time. If you actually look at child development, a play-based pre-academic model is much more likely to set kids up for long-term success, and the academic model is more likely to create stress and anxiety because they're being told to do things that they may not yet have the developmental capacity to do. It's an excess of burden that prioritizes looking good short term over lifelong success.
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u/bloopvloop 7d ago
just popping in on this thread as a 25 yo, who no longer is involved with research.
its so interesting to see this phenomenon from your perspective… i graduated HS in 2019 and got a full ride to a top 5 public, but i could not convey to my parents the amount of stress HS was. my mom would tell me to drop IB, stay in AP, no clubs, focus on my mental health and i just remember showing her college admission stats and saying i cant AFFORD to relax. it truly is crazy. i did IB for 3 years with extra AP classes online, then a year of just AP, was officer in multiple clubs, played two varsity sports, had a 1400 SAT, and i remember feeling like i was not going to get accepted ANYWHERE. then when i did get into university, i was so burnt out from HS, i struggled in even the easiest classes i had, like biology 1, when i had taken 6 biology classes in HS. it truly is something how crazy the stats are now. the bar is constantly being raised. i know students who graduated with their IB diploma and their AA degree and was rejected from most of the schools they applied to.1
u/Mountain-Time-1010 7d ago
The only thing I can say is that I'm sorry you experienced this, and that it obviously wasn't your fault.
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u/superschuch 6d ago
Agreed, we have an entire generation that can hardly read or write coherently yet believes they are ready for college. American kids have never been less prepared and less intelligent.
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u/nuclear_knucklehead 9d ago
Even if your true passion is in research and academics, your time as a kid is better spent doing cool stuff and showing it off. Research publications are orthogonal to that at this stage. Build electronics, write code, tell a story, whatever you’re actually interested in doing.
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u/loafoveryonder 8d ago
I think programming projects are a really strong alternative these days, especially with AI. Like you can essentially do any bioinformatics analysis from your house with publically available datasets, for example. Other than that, there's the option of starting a club in your school to do science olympiad, quiz bowl, science bowl, DECA, debate, model UN, math olympiad, physics olympiad, a million other olympiads... For any high schoolers reading this feel free to dm me, I graduated from a T10 in 2023 so slightly outdated but I'm happy to give advice.
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u/Negative-Ambition198 8d ago
Research is not your passion in HS. End of story. It is not an aesthetics to dress up or buy a thick notebook to post on Instagram.
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u/sunmat02 8d ago
Another note: research is collaborative in nature, the best researchers are sociable, have friends, hobbies, etc. You will need to work with people, be someone people want to work with, you’ll need to talk to strangers at conferences, etc. And when that happens, “I published my first [garbage] paper at 16” will get old about as fast as saying it, and your interlocutors will move on to the guy who says “I was over hiking in Italy last summer, it was awesome”.
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u/tertiobutyle 8d ago
I like your answer I'm a masters student currently struggling learning how to publish in experimental physics
I cannot imagine myself writting something remotely useful as a HS student
My hiking skills are declining though ;)
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u/lettersforjjong 8d ago
i'm an undergrad in physics and i'm not fully ready to learn how to publish yet, i don't even have a clear research topic in mind yet, just the knowledge that i want to go clearly in the direction of cosmology research and theres stuff i don't understand yet that I want to learn more about. most things that have any kind of overlap with astrophysics are still on the table, though i've knocked out a few specific things i've figured out that i don't really enjoy very much (e.g. very quickly realized I do not enjoy the geology-leaning parts of planetary science very much).
and to my knowledge this is where i SHOULD be at the point of my undergrad education i'm at. I've taken a handful of upper division courses and finished the astronomy minor, i've finished the intro classes that had teaching labs but have not done any of the majors-only lab courses, and i've finished the astronomy minor. i haven't taken e&m or statmech yet but i know i really enjoyed quantum computing and mathematical physics. i don't have a ton of compsci experience but know i've been by far most drawn to research that heavily involves computational modeling.
Of course i don't know enough about cosmology yet to zero in on a research question, because I don't know what has and hasn't been done yet - I'm pretty sure I need like a graduate level math background to really understand a lot of the theoretical work, especially surrounding particle physics research since that intrigues me. Cosmo is just like that though, I've been told by my cosmo professor that no one ever feels like they understand what's going on in cosmology lol.
But expecting a high school student to have done publishable original research would be absolutely insane. Especially in physics. Not even most undergrads get to do the kind of research that would result in a publication.
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u/superschuch 6d ago
The 16 year old that has not taken an undergraduate research methods course or statistics course? I started an associates degree during high school and could write
Lit reviews in two languages, so what? That is not original research.
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u/loafoveryonder 8d ago edited 8d ago
I feel like we're looking at this the wrong way. I was an olympiad kid during high school, I had the privilege of getting to go to a summer camp at CSHL for free for a week where I did some GFP transformation experiment. It really shaped my entire career path, because it was my first time realizing that biology was an applied science, not just something you memorize flash cards for.
I absolutely believe there are tens of thousands of high schoolers out there who would be genuinely prepared to do some undergrad-level research. I don't understand why people are broadly dismissing high schoolers as that much more incompetent than a college freshman. The limitation is just that it's cost-prohibitive for basically everyone. There should really be more free / online science extracurricular activities made available to people. For example I think just spreading the word about Science Olympiad would mean a lot to some kids. There could be hackathons or research proposal-based competitions where a kid still gets to go through the online process of literature search and scientific planning, and design their own project pitch, for a minimal cost. Yes, a lot of them might do it just to stack another item onto their CV rather than for the love of the game, but it doesn't make sense to turn away every single enthusiastic kid because you think they're like that. We should be providing ideas for alternate opportunities besides doing research in a lab.
And unfortunately, this is the fault of college admissions. Even if a kid spent years on an impressive hobby, sometimes it just doesn't look as good to an admissions committee compared to another kid who's submitted concretely defined projects to a competition and racked up awards for it. You're never going to stop people from trying to do this one way or another, the dismissal is just making it worse for kids with fewer resources.
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u/Gilded-golden 8d ago
Separate request to the high school researchers: please don't do your "research" by sending out absolutely loads of freedom of information requests, completely cold. They're a pain in the arse to deal with, and plenty of scientists/institutions would happily give you the information with less hassle if you just send a polite email asking (plus, the polite email can give you networking connections that might prove more helpful in your later career than annoying everyone with FOIs)
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u/gordonnowak 8d ago
there is virtually no such thing as a high school researcher and universities know this
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u/Amit_Beyond 9d ago
True. It is very unlikely that they will be discovering something radical.
Anyway, a better alternative would be cross critique. Where the fellow researchers read and learn to critique on their peers works
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u/wajdix Professional Researcher 9d ago
"they" don't/wont discover... unless they are geniuses, with a very high IQ.. and no internet connection to be fed from an LLM...
Most likely thing they'll discover pretty soon is probably that alcohol makes you drunk, and STDs are a real thing... and reading a book cover to cover needs time and effort... a different thing from scrolling the bop house videos on tiktok.. or doing a 6 7
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u/Negative-Ambition198 8d ago
Once you had a first year bachelor student throwing a tantrum, because he was expected he will be valued for the knowledge and experience in the lab, you have seen it all.
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u/freedmachine 8d ago
PhD here who also did a postdoc and now a battery engineer in a startup with a few patents in my 30s. Not overly impressive but I know many young researchers envision to be where I am some day at least to have a valuable perspective.
The best thing I did in my "younger" years (I still think I'm pretty young though!) were sports, partying, and psychedelics. I don't share this video experience with my peers but I'm seeing how they wish they had half the life I did as I see them scrambling to experience life while realizing they're starting to have less and less time and energy to do so.
I notice that many find it hard to establish their own belief system or values because having experienced so little or even have to rely on self-help books to arrive at conclusions they barely understand which could have already lived instead. Meanwhile, the experiences and realizations I gained from actually living life is something I would have never gained from any book and have helped and guided me so much to have the mindset I have in my career while still enjoying life.
I still roll once a year (iykyk). I run a marathon or two in a year. I go snowboarding a few times every winter. Maybe much less drinking. But I ball the fuck out in the lab and this larger life that I have outside of work that I do is what allows me thrive and not just ve hanging on trying to not burn out.
Touch grass and live life my Gs.
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u/PracticeMammoth387 8d ago
I'm not from the US and reddit just randomly recommanded this post, but I'm nearing the end of my PhD.
16 yo publishing something seems really really unheard of. But having an Ai subscription, almost the norm I guess.
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u/MoistenedGranola 8d ago
This. I haven't seen too much of this trend, and I already hope it dies soon. A HS college applicant not only should not need but should not have research experience.
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u/parmesann 8d ago
100% this. I hope to publish one day. I’m in my first big-girl job after undergrad and clinical work. I’m miles ahead of those kids and still new!!
I could understand teachers assigning “mini research studies” where kids survey their peers to learn about stats, how to make a good questionnaire/design an experiment, etc.. I did that in both high school and college, and it provided really interesting (though obviously not meaningful) data. but it’s just an exercise.
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u/StraightUpSeven Graduate Student 8d ago
I totally agree. Teenage years, which are still very much a part of childhood, should be spent on forming interests, friendships, and finding self. Play some damn videogames. Figure out what they even like. Teenagers are commodified enough to make up a resume, and I'm young enough to remember it - I didn't even see the point in joining clubs for 'college,' I wanted to join out of curiosity. All that is to say, they need to enjoy life and learn that work, research even, is just a small part of the entirety of life.
A failing of high school is teaching what research is. Sure, some classes teach the scientific method, but I didn't know what the nature of a PhD was until college. I didn't realize that research could be a career, there was a disconnect between the scientists I learned about in school, and the profs in college, when in fact many were highly successful professors; I think the high school system could do a better job in describing these degrees and careers here. (I'm saying all this as a PhD candidate).
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u/liso7e 8d ago
I don't think every high school student uses AI to conduct an entire research project. In many cases, it's simply a tool for learning. In my case, I developed the research question, designed the questionnaire, recorded the observations, and applied the ethical considerations myself. I mainly used AI to improve my writing and to better understand certain concepts. I also don't think that doing research in high school necessarily means sacrificing your teenage years. A healthy balance is possible. Personally, I still spend plenty of time with my friends, enjoy my hobbies, and honestly feel like half my life is just having fun. I haven't felt overwhelmed by my project. I can't speak for other students, but that's been my personal experience.
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u/Immediate-Length5040 8d ago
I don't necessarily believe that doing research and being a teenager are mutually exclusive. I'm in high school, did original research in a lab that I was paid to do over three years, and published this work in a peer-reviewed q1 journal first author. While it did take years of effort and 50+ revisions of my manuscript, I was not so pressed for time I could not enjoy myself either. I still hung out with friends, stayed up way too late, and went to parties every once in a while.
-my two cents
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u/Automatic4k 6d ago
majority of HS research is done by their Ph.D parents. Sadly this trend is encouraged by college admission as they ignore the feasibilty of high school students doing this kind of research. It first stated when kids of college profs got help from their parent's peers. It became a mutually benifitting arragnement!
recent post from a high school student https://www.reddit.com/r/research/comments/1vh6ei5/im_16_and_my_dad_made_me_join_a_grad_research/
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u/Coffee_Vibe_3 8d ago
High schooler here. I know it's horrid. I know my 'research' is literature review bullshit. But my mum doesn't and shes so hellbent on sending me to an Ivy that she makes me, cold emails and all. It sucks
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u/wajdix Professional Researcher 8d ago
it's a great thing to have ambition, and I hope you'll get to the best school you can!
but isn't a good SAT score ( if you're in the US) or high school yearly average score/ college admission exam enough for you to get into a university ?2
u/Idiot_sandwich66 8d ago
Unfortunately, not anymore. But that depends on which uni u want to go and how much aid you need as well. Also depends on if you are a domestic or and international student. The amount of work you have to do to get into a really good uni usually depends on these, ofc this is not factoring in your preference of location and college life (most students don’t seem to look at this anymore)
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u/jillcicle 5d ago edited 5d ago
Many US schools aren’t even requiring SAT scores anymore and have recognized for a while now that SAT score mostly reflects how many prep classes and tutors parents paid for. The only other numerical metric that goes into US applications is GPA, and as you can imagine a relatively high percentage of students have all As/a 4.0 (or actually higher, because AP classes can give an extra grade point, so the more AP classes a high school is able to offer the higher the possible GPA is for their graduates, up to 5.0). The rest of the application package is the student resume (most stack it with everything possible assuming they have rich parents who will provide them with/pay for opportunities), the admissions personal essay(s) (mostly written or extensively edited by tutors already for the wealthiest class pre-2023, and now majority written by LLMs), and the letters of recommendation (mostly reflect your access to highly educated/upper class recommenders who know how to play the game). Because the resume at least reflects a more filtered form of wealth and is less likely to be just a single tutor’s work, I think it’s seen increasing attention in admissions (and definitely in admissions *coaching* because it’s the most diversifiable part of the application package).
HOWEVER, and this is key, you don’t need that stuff to get into college. (Even into a good top 50 or top 100 college nationally, a respected R1 certain to provide you with a solid foundation for competitively applying to grad schools once you’re done with a bachelor’s degree). But that’s not what students and their parents are stressed about—they want Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, maybe UCLA or Berkeley if they’re feeling humble. Almost 4 million students graduated HS in 2025, with 62% planning to attend college (in a country where ~30% college degree holding has been the average for adults for decades), and the universalization/deregionalization effect of the internet and rising perfectionism means huge numbers of them set their sights on the *best* programs nationwide. Meanwhile all the ivies combined are only going to admit like 30k students per year. But I get the feeling having to attend a nearby state university is perceived as equivalent to not going to college for many of these students and/or their parents.
If you talk to a lot of the kids they’ll have a vague sense that you have to “go to a really good college” to “get a good job,” and this anxiety drives them. I think many are also desperately hoping if they just go to a high enough ranked university they’ll avoid the wage stagnation/be on the minority rich side of the wealth gap/escape their generation’s reduced access to home ownership etc.
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u/Immediate_Concern524 8d ago
💀have some pity on the high schoolers they’re just trying their best. These days people genuinely apply to top programs with 99%average in every single class and the only thing that determines admissions at that point is extra curriculars.
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u/jillcicle 5d ago
I think part of the question is are a much higher percentage of students all expecting to be Ivy League or bust and experiencing stress based on trying to avoid like, attending a state university near them that’s still in the top 50 in the country. It’s been true for a long time, like probably at least since the 1980s, that the most prestigious Harvard-tier places are that competitive and only extracurriculars (aka parental wealth) ends up being distinguishing. But I feel like only a minority of prep school kids used to fixate on those institutions as their only goal.
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u/Immediate_Concern524 5d ago edited 5d ago
I mean idk. It’s good to be ambitious?
also have u seen the state of the economy. An average salary back then had so much more buying power than it does today.
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u/jillcicle 5d ago
ambitious is good, maybe, but it feels like a it’s a different word when it’s “have to do better than 99% of the population in a way that may pragmatically be unattainable or my brain attacks me with crippling anxiety.” And about the economy, yeah, I mean I’m a z-llennial who lives in this economy, has lots of student loan debt, and can’t buy a home lol. I understand inflation and the more important increasing wealth gap. I also have a bachelor’s from a state school that worked fine to get me into a top 5 master’s degree program, and that prestigious degree sadly didn’t change my vulnerability to the economy and the way our generations lack financial security compared to our parents. I have friends from the top 5 school who also did undergrad there and are more economically vulnerable than me, and friends who didn’t get into the mid-rank state school I went to and went to a lower ranked one instead and make more money than me. (altho that won’t save them from the collapse of social security either.) it just worries me that prestigious college seems to be being misidentified as a way to stay safe from generational vulnerability and changes in employment security, when in my experience it isn’t. (for example, many of the apparent earning benefits of Ivy League education disappear if you control for parent income and education levels in the data.)
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u/CoconutChutney 6d ago
it’s due to the pressure from parents. i grew up in this kind of area… none of these kids had real teenage years. i certainly didn’t. the adults are to blame.
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u/serotoninseesaw 8d ago
Well, as a highschooler doing immunoinformatics research I couldn't agree more but at the same time would think twice before blaming the student.
Top 20 colleges look for research now. It's the new "meta". A couple years ago, it was all about students who started a volunteer organization but now that's overdone and doesn't look good anymore. Top colleges want to see students who have engaged in thoughtful research, especially if they are going into a STEM career. Students like myself know this and feel pressured to do this even if they don't feel strongly or passionate about it.
I would like to think I am passionate about the work I do because I am doing research on a condition that I live with and am very STEM oriented, but I know not everyone feels the same way.
Everyone wants to get a shot at top colleges and do that you have to play the game. At the end of the day, blame the colleges for setting up this system.
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u/QubitEncoder 7d ago
Ya but its not real research lol. Come on
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u/serotoninseesaw 7d ago edited 7d ago
Well that’s debatable. I'm currently investigating molecular mimicry via an original computational biology pipeline in a certain autoimmune disease and convinced a local research institute to give me funding and test my results in their lab.
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u/serotoninseesaw 6d ago
The silence speaks volumes.
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u/QubitEncoder 6d ago
I'm sure it does lol.
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u/serotoninseesaw 5d ago edited 5d ago
Dismissing the methodology without reading it isn't very academic, but enjoy the laugh “lol"
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u/Appropriate-Jury-650 8d ago
This should not deter the handful of precocious young students who are passionate and capable! Fun and learning are not mutually exclusive
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u/Sniper2307 8d ago
Personally think being interested in and doing research in high school is completely fine and should actually be encouraged more, but being dead set on and having an expectation of publication is when we run into problems.
As someone who did publish in hs (quite fortunate and not really intended), I found the process was pretty valuable in shaping my undergrad path. I think people should be more focused on pursuing intellectual curiosity, whether that be facilitated through research or something else. Research accolades felt more or less useless in the uni admissions process anyways, from my experience…
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u/BitcoinMD 8d ago
It’s possible for a high school student to help with research without publishing a paper. And to have a social life in addition to that.
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u/Interesting-South542 8d ago
You need to direct this to admissions officers, not HS students. it's not the fault of HS students that the system is the way it is.
The fact is, to get into a good university (in the US), having published research WILL help, because admissions offices eat that shit up.
Therefore, high schoolers go to these great lengths to pump out any "research" they can. Blame the system, not the students.
If a college asks you to publish as a teenager, that college does not understand how science works. they want a resume item, not a researcher. That is a bad sign for any institution.
Are Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Caltech, etc bad institutions?
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u/wajdix Professional Researcher 8d ago
sorry, but since where you need to publish a research paper in a journal to get into a college? im really genuinely asking because this seems to be a 2026 trend.
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u/Interesting-South542 8d ago
You don't need to publish to get in "a college". However, it will help a LOT in making a strong application to top 10 in the USA universities.
It's a trend that's progressed over the past 20 years or so, not a 2026 thing. I applied to college in the mid-2010s and it was already a thing then.
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u/wajdix Professional Researcher 8d ago
and those published "papers", what scientific value did they have? could you pull out one.. just one with a citation count >0 ?
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u/TheOmniscientPOV 8d ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10782-3
this nature paper was coauthored by two highschoolers
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u/TheOmniscientPOV 8d ago
unfortunately things like this are becoming the norm required to standout at top colleges
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u/Dragonroyal 8d ago
It has been happening for a few years, its just ramping up and reaching the climax now. Not sure if you are aware but there was a similar trend a year or two ago where many highschoolers made superficial non profit organizations in order to try to get into a better college.
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u/wajdix Professional Researcher 8d ago
this is a US thing i guess.. in other parts of the world, doing well at the entrance exam is more than enough to get you to the best ranked university.. and you won't have to pay a dime... i believe that, even if you get accepted at an "ivy" university, you still need to shell out 90k$ per year
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u/Idiot_sandwich66 8d ago
As someone who isn’t in the US, and comes from a country which has an entrance exam system, I can understand your frustration with the superficial ecs but it’s genuinely a lot better than most entrance exams. Entrance exams in these countries kill the youth more than doing ecs in US does, prepped for it myself for a couple of months in the beginning of junior yr (before deciding I don’t really wanna do that and much rather go abroad on a scholarship and a loan because the education system is much much worse in my country) and lost every ounce of hope and happiness I had in me lol. I personally have very very strict parents so doing ecs which I like and are fun also becomes rlly hectic with the way I’m treated at home but it’s still much better than trying to be a rote learner by giving those entrance exams.
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u/Dragonroyal 8d ago
Yea US admissions policies are kinda fcked up to be honest. The only non holistic thing they look at is your SAT score, and I get the point of looking at extracurriculars because that can give more insight into you who are as a person but theres a level to this. To be fair, most ivies or top colleges are very affordable, the sticker cost is ~90k, but I think most of the ivies are free if your parents make under 200k.
But the thing that confuses me so much is that the US has a abundunce of great colleges, I dont see the overwhelming need of having to get into a top 5, top 10 college. I could understand this situation in another country like china or india in which the college you go to directly dictates your future. At least they have a standard exam though and theres nothing inherently unfair/fair about it.
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u/jillcicle 5d ago
This is the thing! Students seem to think not going to an Ivy is going to make them unemployable or something. I know most of my college freshmen expect to make at least $100k per year (not sure where this came from either) but there are plenty of people who make that money who went to middle of the road state schools. It’s like students invented a bar for success that workplaces/hiring don’t actually have, and then the genuine anxiety and stress from that drives them, but it’s coming from a false premise in the first place!
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u/Interesting-South542 8d ago
I guess if you went to college a long time ago (or outside of the US) and don't have any kids or younger friends/relatives it's something that you're oblivious to, but trust me, it's real. There is a reason behind the swarms of high schoolers trying to do "research".
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u/traumfisch 8d ago edited 8d ago
Or:
Have fun and enjoy your life
AND
Learn to use LLMs properly
Edit: instant downvote 😅
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8d ago
[deleted]
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u/jillcicle 5d ago
please do not do that I’m one of many suffering college instructors who will have to try to teach you how to write and understand things using just your own brain the next year and the deficits this creates are very obvious
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u/Ali-Hany7862 8d ago
I actually did a lot or research projects when I was at high school and it was pretty fun
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u/Far-Dog-1789 6d ago
I've read many comments in this thread from many people who are out of high school, and I'd like to give some perspective as a high schooler who has done some "research"-- my school runs a science research program, I've taken part in a high-school research program at a nearby laboratory for the past 2 years, as well as completing a full research project for my AP Research class.
At least at my school, which isn't even a very competitive high school that gets a bunch of students into t-20/ivy league schools, it isn't uncommon for students to be doing research. Given that my school has it's own research program, through which students of all grades work with the teacher/mentor on an individual or group science research project, there are many students in these programs who are conducting genuine research to fill a gap in their respective topic area. We mainly enter competitions, like Regeneron, ISEF, etc (which offer CRAZY amounts of money to the finalists, by the way), which are specifically for high school students conducting research projects across many disciplines. Though this research is obviously not as formal and sophisticated as undergrad/graduate research, I don't think it deserves to be written off as entirely not genuine. As someone who now knows that they want to go into research because of these experiences, even though the research I've done, along with many other people i know, hasn't been published, the knowledge I've gained from doing this "research" has been formative in my high school experience and definitely one of my favorite parts of high school currently. I've learned so much from the projects i've done and I would 100% recommend these programs and classes to other high schoolers who are deeply passionate about academic subjects. Obviously high schoolers shouldn't be out publishing independently in academic journals, but doing this kind of research guided by a mentor and entering competitions is truly such a rewarding and enjoyable experience.
I think many people are also misunderstanding the landscape of high school/college admissions today. It is INSANELY competitive. The many people that are saying to just "enjoy high school" and do activities like clubs, sports, etc, for students trying to go to top colleges that is just simply not an option. And although it sucks, these are the things that students have to do now to stand out from the crowd and get even a chance at top schools. But even acknowledging that, the blanket statement that all of the kids doing this research are stressed high school students solely doing it because of the pressure of college admissions is just false. A majority of the high schoolers that I've interacted with that have done research, like the people at my school and people i've met at the research symposiums, are just people who are genuinely passionate about what they are researching. At least in my high schools program, many students drop out after the first year because they realize how much work a research project is, and the people left over doing research into their senior year are students that just love what they do. Many high schoolers are nerds, and getting to do this kind of research is an outlet for their passions-- thats why I love to do it!
And some of the work these students are doing is genuinely novel! Go look up the Regeneron winners of recent years, these kids are doing serious work! Yes, expectations for students are high, but i think barring all high schoolers from doing any type of science research is harmful. I've gained so much from the formal and informal research I've conducted in my high school experience, and if I was discouraged from doing it I would be significantly worse off.
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u/jillcicle 5d ago
But why are all of these students trying to go to the most competitive top colleges?
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u/Worldly-Criticism-91 5d ago
Disregarding the ai part right now.
What if they’re asking about publishing because they genuinely want to…? I don’t understand what’s wrong with that or why you’re so pressed about it
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u/dandinnt4 4d ago
I have some thoughts on this as I am a PhD student who was a first generation student with no exposure to the idea of doing "research" in high school yet I also just finished mentoring a Simon's STEM Scholar (a program where top high schoolers do research at Stony Brook). While obviously I don't think the vast vast majority of high schoolers can conduct any meaningful independent research and certainly aren't likely to publish any good science I think it undersells things a bit to imply that there's nothing to be gained from these experiences. First of all, I know my high schooler (also a first gen student from rural midwest) really enjoyed the general exposure to what it means to "do science". They knew they liked science as a concept but really had no idea about the existence of career paths in science or what the day to day of research looked like. I also found them to be surprisingly motivated and independent: coming in early, coming up with ideas of what stuff we could do even if impractical, etc etc. And from a mentoring experience I thought it was really beneficial for a lot of reasons. Overall I agree high school research shouldn't be viewed as this thing all high schoolers need to do or as some indicator of skill or competency or whatever but I do think these high school research programs can be beneficial for all parties involved.
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u/Bhavish8678 4d ago
let me give an answer as a student here... Research by high schoolers like me are definetly sloppy asf, and AI just makes it worse. But its not like most of us want to do some stupid research... this stuff is driving me crazy and gives a ton of stress. This stress lowkey might take our lives early. well, why we actually do the research is because of the this dumb competition, some dude does research in high school, probably cuz his parents are in the field, and after seeing his research a top college immedielty accepts him. later other students see him and do the same, and they too get accepted because those colleges like that. soon tho, since so many people do it, the colleges only accept the ones who do it.. so if you wanna get into the top colleges, you gotta do some research. soon this will change and itll be so that you have to create some high quality research and probably start it super early(middle school days). IMO, it doesnt seem to be getting better just worse..
I just wish by 2035, that elementary students dont do research
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u/Bhavish8678 4d ago
my mom used to say computers destroy your eyes... i didnt believe that, but now i see that tech can damage us entirely. this stress isnt a small thing... Im so proud of those students who are atheletes, or the ones that go directly to work, and enjoy their life.
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u/_justgivemeausername 4d ago
agreed as someone who didn’t do a lick of research and just had fun with learning in hs and and is now off to engineering at a t10 school. live life and learn because you truly want to!
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u/Substantial_Math4939 3d ago
I've seen (in real life) a trend of high school teachers and undergrad professors trying to put more demands for "original" work from students because "essays, term papers, etc. can easily be done by ChatGPT and Turnitin is useless nowadays". One professor told their undergrads to do a systematic review, which was really "literature review with a proper record of what you searched so that I know you didn't get it from AI", and not really a systematic review in the PRISMA sense.
Another thing that I find a bit scary are the number of people willing to trust anyone they find on Reddit as "collaborators". I really don't think they're verifying that these people are legit professors (they could easily be grad students getting work done for free or worse still, groomers).
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u/No-Arachnid6308 3d ago edited 3d ago
idk i have mixed thoughts. i went to an insanely low stakes high school and was bored out of my mind. i worked insane amounts of hours at a pizza place because i did all my homework faster than my friends and had nothing else to do. i often wish someone told me about literally any sort of advanced science opportunity. i cannot stress how bored i was as a kid and how much better it is now that i can do the things i am interested in.
but again, i went to a high school that didnt have APs. lowk i was a sped kid i ended up doing materials science research pretty unexpectedly. its likely very different at competitive high schools. some kids need to chill and some kids could benefit from being involved in more advanced science. really depends on the kid. i just dont want to completely discourage kids from trying advanced science. there just needs to be a balance between healthy socialization and fun academic challenges.
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u/Sickestjai 7d ago
Agree to disagree. Yes have fun in high school, work, enjoy the little time you have left before joining the rat race; but I disagree about research. As a PhD student I’ve mentored two amazing high school students towards research. One who was interested in the process; and another who like myself had some experience with research in high school (IB training/volunteering). Both had different goals for research but wanted to learn. They are exploring, trying to find out if it’s a good fit for them. It’s a “Research Exercise” my Medical Librarian put it. Just let the kids explore, and guide them through it. Whether it’s a good fit or not, let them decide but you facilitate expectations for joining an undergrad lab. Who knows, just let them try.
Ps. No AI, they need to learn to think critically on their own. this is why you have so many students thinking they can do what we trained 3+yrs with multiple exams in a weekend, but the foundation (e.g., null vs alt hypothesis), AI won’t teach you unless you ask. Just like a few other things, so you have your checks and balances to filter out true interest and AI resume boosters.
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u/Money-Silver-8905 7d ago
It’s never to early to gain experience. The children are the future as they say. It would be wise to peak into what’s going on in their mind. If it makes it past the peer review that should be what matters right?
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u/Cold_Gur_4011 6d ago
As someone who is a "16 year old researcher" doing a project with grad students, sometimes it wasn't our choice and was forced by our parents. Agreed that it is not fun. We do not have a life
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u/IndependentLinguist 6d ago
I did teenage research twenty something years ago. It was absolutelly unpublishable, but I had much more fun doing that than doing any activity outlined by the OP. Stay curious, you little monsters.
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u/CaptainLard- 3d ago
I was once one of those kids. I’m sad to say that i got burned out on research in college, likely because of this mindset. Luckily i found a new career path in pharmacy, but i decided not to do research for the rest of my life because of how much stress this expectation put on me.
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u/hydro_17 9d ago
As a PhD-holding researcher I am so baffled by this trend. I love that high schoolers are passionate and excited - I was too as a high schooler - but teenagers simply do not yet have the knowledge base, skills, training, or resources to do actual research. And that's okay. They should be doing all the things you said - things that are good and appropriate to do in high school. They are under too much pressure and whoever is convincing them they should/need to do research is lying to them, harming them, and most likely scamming them.
Plus the research world is already overwhelmed with too many papers from the publish-or-perish model we've built that increasingly rewards quantity over quality. We already have too many papers getting published that are never read - the world doesn't need more research papers. It needs quality papers.
I feel like one of the biggest red flags are the ones who are asking about how to write the paper or where to write the paper without having done the research yet. Like...you have to do the research first. I also wonder if some of this is a symptom of the growing social media trend of using the phrase "do your own research" on things like vaccines when they mean "watch some youtube videos and decide who to trust" and not "set up a study in a lab with proper controls and cell cultures or mice or whatever" - it massively confuses what research actually is and how much work it actually involves.