W mindset, supported on this channel 💪

Tbh, I feel the same way. It’s really exhausting just stressing through all of these conflicting videos about collage. That’s definitely the right mindset to have.

High school senior here. Seriously dude, when I was writing my essays, I was wondering what the hell I was doing with my life. I should have just done what I wanted to do. That would have been sufficient to get me into a good school.

Yes, It looks like universities admit zombies only who prepare for admission this way: volunteering - check, scouts - check, hugging babbling- check, loving monsters - check, etc. Sorry, this is utter distortion of the role of academia. My alma mater is medieval and I was interested in the history of universities for a while (privately not academically). And yes, personally, I resent the approach - one can be a monster, but as long as one drops his dirty underwear to his victims - for self-promotion, self-gratification and tax purposes, one is wonderful. I am pretty sure that the focus should be on ethical life in general and academic seriousness and not on some required extracurricular self-serving poses. dr anna

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/Y9xoo6dhyZumnZ8.htmlsi=KaITc33qtKFNWca6&t=153

exactly

Havard the Hindupobic biggoted school no thanks

This is hella off topic but what kinds of things did you do in high school to get in?

copium lowkey

@@po6417 fair, i guess. i did only apply to caltech (early), so i don't know if I would have gotten into those other schools)

I don’t think our intention was to belittle Caltech. I think the overall point was that the math students attending Harvard and MIT seem to have higher prestige & more competitive awards such as USAJMO, MOP, IMO, etc. compared to the top award of an AIME qualification. Shriya, the person who helped me with this video, put her ISEF 1st Place Awards on her honors list alongside RSI and other science awards - and listed AIME in the additional information. This, along with knowledge of our own classmates and friends who were accepted to Harvard and MIT vs Caltech led us to our conclusion. It’s well known that the majority of International Math Olympiad winners go to MIT - and I think that leaves students with (slightly) lower awards attending Caltech and other institutions (including Harvard). This is possibly why Caltech has a lower acceptance rate-because around 50% of its admit-tees decide not to go. Furthermore, Harvard has a huge econ & gov focus, which result in skewed statistics. Overall, there was no intention in belittling Caltech.

The proof of this elitist attitude they have is in the 1000x comment made. Like for real, what a bunch of bs. Also, what wtf do you mean caliber of Caltech students is less than MIT and Harvard. Like for real??!

​@@aaravmittal06obviously it's possible to get lucky like you did without crazy awards, but they are talking about things that guarantee admission. Also, you might want to wait until admissions day before being so confident with a likely letter.

cool how did it go? (i just saw you from discord!)

Dude's coping hard 😂 btw as students you can see your admission file so I'm pretty sure they know why they got in

Shriya went to Plano East Senior High. None of her family is in science research. Her parents are immigrants and she does not have any older siblings. She started her research at a local community college just by reaching out via cold email. She says her public school counselor did not help at all, which is true for almost all public schools (mine did nothing either). Public school counselors are usually more concerned about students not on track to graduate and thus they do not really support students interested in research. Shriya says their class size of 1400 students was so large that she only talked to her counselor once or twice. Shriya says she studied for the SAT using practice reading and writing passages from online exams and books from the library. She says she did not study for the SAT math. Overall, I would say it’s presumptuous to say that a lot of ISEF winners have familial connections when most are passionate students in my experience. The reason they do so well is because they are self motivated and genuinely interested in their topic rather than doing things for college app purposes.

​@@RishabJainK Sorry if my previous post suggested that Shriya's accomplishments (which are clearly impressive) were somehow not from her own hard work, grit and brilliance (all of which she certainly has). You need those qualities, but 99 % of the time, you need far more than that. The point of my post was that Amy almost certainly had the drive and the brains to accomplish what you and Shriya accomplished . The difference is that she went to a public school in which (according to her elsewhere) there were, for example, not science fair opportunities, no opportunity to get a sponsor necessary to enter ISEF, no USPHO, not much of a computer science, hacker, coding, building app culture other than an AP Comp class, etc.. I get the impression the best her public school offered was AP Calc BC and other traditional science AP classes, which is kinda a dime a dozen these days, but she didn't know it then) . You and Shriya had the smart idea to reach out to professors to get the mentorship you guys absolutely needed. No one told Amy that, nor was she able to come up with that idea on her own when she was 14, 15, 16 years old. When it comes to science research, you can't just do it on your own. You need access to a lab, a science advisor, at almost every step. Math is a little different and a lot harder to reach the IMO level (in my opinion) because at math olympiads, you need to find the right answer. There are no experiments where you can work on over the course of a year or two, where you can suggest an association of how compound A might affect process B (etc..) so in that respect, scientific research in the life sciences provides a little more flexibility and creativity at least at the high school ISEF level (in my opinion). (And yes, a lot of IMOs go to MIT cause they actively recruit these mathletes for their Putnam team) Also, I didn't mean to suggest that "a lot of ISEF winners have familial connections." A number of them certainly do and it would be interesting if a sociologist could analyze it formally. What I said was at that level, you can't do it without mentors, top teachers and professors. How you access them is from important networking (the social capital, yes, through family connections, and through programs offered through good schools whether public or private). Of course, you also need someone willing to take you in and mentor you. You are more likely to get such sponsorships if you live in a large city, much less so in smaller cities. I don't know much about Plano East Senior High but it sounds like a very good public school, something closer to a Stuyvesant than your average public school. I doubt Shriya was the first person at her high school to enter ISEF. In sum, I think your videos are great and they are doing a lot to educate kids who can't afford college consultants and are kind of stuck figuring it out for themselves. Your videos give them a great step by step instruction. This video, however, just kind struck me as "my achievements were at a much higher level than your achievements" and that's why we got in and you didn't. I'm sure you and Shriya didn't mean it that way, but honestly, it kinda gives out that vibe.

My videos demonstrate that anyone can do science research. No one is asking you to do a Nature level discovery when you’re 14, but you can certainly build a solar panel or make an Android app. I refuse to buy into the myth perpetuated online that you need huge amounts of social capital and resources to do science. We need to be uplifting everyone, not telling them that “you can’t do this, so don’t bother trying.” Using my videos and guides, thousands of students have begun their research project journeys. I started my first science project in my kitchen using juice and sodas. I then used an old laptop worth about $100 to learn coding. I am completely self taught and had no lessons, no school teachers, and no parents who knew coding to teach me. Of course, this requires privilege to do so. I am not denying that. But saying that you need to be extraordinarily well connected or resourced is misleading. $100 is a decent sum of money. However, I’m willing to bet there are hundreds of students who have that at their disposal (or a $1000 gaming PC they use for Minecraft) who could be doing science - but think that they can’t because they don’t have the “connections” Many students just need the motivation and role model of past students who have done the same, which is why I make videos about doing science research. It’s to inspire more to do the same. Many of them have little to no resources and lack support from their schools, just like many ISEF finalists do each and every year. I want to showcase these examples and dispel the myth prevalent amongst students that only the rich can do science. I want everyone to be motivated and inspired.

Also, I think you don’t know much about how the science fair process works. In high school, my public school did not have any teacher willing to sponsor me to the fair. I asked two teachers and both of them refused to help me as a sponsor. I had to enter on my own, which is 100% possible. That is something that requires grit, and every student can do it if they dedicate the time to do a quick Google Search online about entering their regional/state fairs. Every single county in America has a corresponding science fair OR a state science fair. These counties and state level contests send students to ISEF. Just because your school doesn’t offer support or a sponsor (mine certainly didn’t) doesn’t mean you can’t enter. My school did not even offer the AIME test until my senior year, so it’s kind of ridiculous to say that “oh your school has to offer xyz” in order for someone to do it. Self motivated people run through walls to find solutions to problems. I had a couple of friends who would go to other schools to take tests for competing. It’s the same thing with taking the SAT. The problems really only apply if you cannot afford transportation, or have familial responsibilities that prevent you from doing these things. For these students, we need structural help like financial waivers implemented or nonprofits who can do outreach.

Also most of my science fair projects until around 11th grade were independent research projects that were not mentored. I reached out to local labs and they denied me due to my age or lack of experience. I ran through walls and did projects by myself on a $100 laptop that crashed all the time. When I started winning science fairs, then I used the prize money to buy a better computer, and used the awards to help me land better opportunities. Later in high school, I applied to MIT’s Research Science Institute program which is fully funded and I got the chance to do research at MIT. This was not because of “social capital” etc. like you claim. There are merit based programs and opportunities that I show on my channel. Once again though, if you lack transportation fees to even compete at a science fair or cannot afford a laptop etc. those problems actually inhibit people from being able to pursue their ambitions. For these students, I dedicate parts of my business’ revenue to help fund their research projects (donated over $1000 so far) and provide opportunities (for free) to them. I hope one day we can provide support to these thousands of students who lack access.

It depends on the context of your life and high school. Either way, it never hurts to try to apply to reach schools. You just gott believe in yourself, and even if you don’t get accepted, you don’t really lose anything

@@lafrost7759 yea our HS doesn’t even do AP classes 😂 MIT Stanford looks awesome as shit but If I get in instate (UC) I’ll go there tho. Wayyy cheaper and closer + Berkeley/la/sd are top

@t7759 yh I'll try but tbh it seems better to me to go to a UC school since they are so cheap instate. I'm probably CS major too so its super hard to get into it

@@lafrost7759 you wasted money if you get rejected

Fr

Just go to university where you live. Have a good life and be happy.

greenverse

i live in a place where our education system is poor so going to a university here will not bring out the best in me@@jinniroe5002