

Three Girls Win Intel Science Fair - aswanson
http://wayofthewoo.blogspot.com/2008/05/three-girls-win-intel-science-fair.html

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timr
This is nice to see, but the Intel fair is hardly a meaningful measurement of
demographic trends.

Winning the Intel competition depends heavily on a high-school student's
(rather privileged) access to university-level research. It's no secret that
universities are invested in youth outreach for women and minorities in
science. In other words, there's a huge, not-so-hidden selection bias going on
here.

A far more _interesting_ question: what happens to these women after 8+ years
of post-secondary education? (Hint: they don't tend to stick around to gather
more awards)

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ardit33
from what I know, it is always kids with parents that are into the industry
that win it. So, privileged, also means having a parent working on advanced
research or R&D with heavy access of materials and knowledge that normal
parents don't.

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Shooter
While it's very true that privileged parents/school connections help some
students tremendously, good science is still good science. Anyone with a good
research idea that can execute well will be able to go pretty far in the
competitions. You don't have to have PhD parents or go to a private school to
win.

I won several awards at ISEF many years ago, including a few full-ride college
scholarships. That was before Intel took it over completely. I also won awards
at Westinghouse and some of the DoD science competitions. My Dad was a truck
driver and my Mom was a waitress at the time. They are 'normal' - for the most
part ;-) I also went to a small, rural high school that was definitely NOT
known for its science programs. Despite this contrary anecdotal evidence, I'll
have to mostly agree with you about the background of the people that win at
these competitions...although I can't speak directly to the gender issue. (I
do remember quite a few female competitors...?)

I was definitely the odd guy out at most of the competitions because I didn't
go to a private school and/or come from a very wealthy and educated family. I
was also a little lower on the...uh...Asperger's scale that most of my
competitors, to put it diplomatically. While I was a geek at my high school, I
seemed like an extroverted uber-jock at most of the competitions because it
turns out that everything IS relative. It was a very weird (but nice) change
in roles.

They have some great awards at these competitions. I won a trip to MITI City
in Japan, for example. It's also fun...the practical jokes that come about
with that many geeks hanging out are amazing! ;-)

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timr
Well, like they say...the exceptions make the rule.

I think what's interesting about your story is not so much that you did these
things, but that you were _able_ to do them. In particular, what happened that
allowed you (rural high school kid with blue-collar parents) to do
Westinghouse-caliber work? Did someone approach you with a great opportunity,
was it the result of tenaciousness and single-minded dedication, did you have
a Homer-Hickam-style, one-in-a-million series of fortunate events...all of the
above?

The fact that you're agreeing with us about the overall competitor pool in
these contests suggests that your experience was a pretty rare event.

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maximilian
Did you read the shit they did! They did some pretty crazy shit for being high
schoolers.. I hardly knew my way around an integral in high school let alone
doing what these kids did.

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nazgulnarsil
lol, asian and two indians like I expected. white girls are stupid and lazy :p
(bring on the downmods)

