I'll get him to ask this when he talks to his advisers.

Good question. When I applied, it wasn't. But if you are linking it to your research with a specific professor, sounds like it would be. Another good thing to find out.

This is a very good point. I will tell him this. My naive understanding is that in physics the equipment is expensive, so my impression is that different universities focused on different things because they can't buy equipment for everything. This is very different from my field of Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology where the professors need little equipment, but rather need money to travel to the study site. For me, I could change my subfield without having to change universities. I went from behavioural ecology to population dynamics, which is enormous. But neither needed expensive equipment so was not a problem.

Yup. It is very frustrating. Even for this summer, where he could do a different research project, it will have to be remote. So does he 1) work remotely on a project where he knows the people because he started with them face to face and he is now making very good progress. Or 2) still work remotely but on a new project with people he does not know and can't work with intimately so is likely to not gain a good understanding of the field anyway because he will basically be doing it in his bedroom. It is just a muddle.

This is very helpful! Thank you! If he continues with the particle physics he is doing, it is transformative. They are about to publish something that will break the Standard Model. DS is very excited. He just doesn't know if he wants to continue with PP. If he does, it would be easy to find an adviser to continue this research with because it is already so far forward. He could definitely apply for the NSF as an undergrad, and I would argue has a very very good shot of getting it. If he switches to Condensed Matter Physics, then he really knows nothing, and would have to wait until after he starts grad school and learns something about the field. Very confusing for him to know what to do.

It is one of those things that he doesn't know what he doesn't know, so doesn't know what to ask! LOL. He is planning to talk to his academic adviser and his research adviser next week, he just didn't want to appear like an idiot, so thought some prep would be a good idea. His biggest problem is that because of Covid, instead of having multiple different research experiences in different summers and during January term as he had planned, he instead has had only one that has lasted 2.5 years. It has been awesome, and has taught him so much, but he is not sure this is the field he really wants to go into (particle physics). But now that he knows so much about this field, and is actually going to get a publication that is important to the field, it is just easier to keep going with what he knows rather than take a risk and going into condensed matter physics, which he has never worked in but has interested him. Kind of a muddle, because he has to make a decision about his future without enough information. Covid screwed the information collecting period.

The reason, 8fill, that he is looking at this program is that he has been encouraged to apply for programs like Rhodes, Mitchel, Fulbright, Schwarzman etc, but he was not sure he wanted to go overseas (as he is already overseas!). So the other option on the list he was sent was the NSF fellowship for the USA so we started researching it. There are different offices that help students depending on what they are applying for, so we are trying to figure out 1) if he is interested in these fellowships, and 2) if so, which one. I appreciate hearing that grad programs are funded. In my day this was true but you had to work 20 hours per week teaching, so I was very jealous of the kid with an NSF fellowship. Regentrude, it sounds like although undergrads can apply for the NSF fellowship, that it would be better done as a first year grad student. This was not the case back in my day when I applied, but clearly times change. As for crazy competitive, they said that 16% of applications were funded, which we thought was pretty high. Can either of you recommend a book or website that can help walk him through the grad school application process?

Yeah,my sister had one too. But the process that get it has changed a lot I think. He will be applying in physics but then he has to pick a subfield. This is shockingly confusing. This year they have decided to focus on three areas for giving out money: computationally intensive research, artificial intelligence, and quantum information computing. So each field has the standard subfields like particle physics or condensed matter physics (my son's top two picks) but then you could instead pick computationally intensive, AI, or quantum information computing. Which you pick determines your reader, so it is really important. Well, all of particle physics is both computationally intense and full of AI. So I have no idea which box he should tick. And it is new this year, so I'm guessing no one will be clear on it. On the good side at least is that is current research is on the list for who they want to fund.

haha. I know, right. I was the same. But as a homeschool parent, I've done a better job teaching my kids the difference. If they want to retain it, they have to work on it for longer than 9 months.

Yup. It kind of depends on if you are taking a class to tick a box, or if you actually want to have and retain the knowledge. I hate box ticking, so we have not done a whole lot of it here. I would rather take longer and go deeper than do a bunch of survey classes that are soon forgotten.

For post Calc, my son did Number theory, Combinatorics, Linear Algebra, Analysis with Baby Rudin, and Olympiad Geometry. In hindsight, he should have taken differential equations to get it out of the way because it is a ho hum class.

I know nothing about the AP exams, but I will say that my son did Calculus with AoPS first and then did it again with a more applied textbook - Anton. As good as he is in math, he has always found that working longer on a subject allows it to sink in better.

My son will be applying for the NSF grad fellowship in October. The application has a lot of detail, and there is one area we think he is weak on. He will be judged on his and his research's intellectual merit and broader impacts - and they must be addressed individually under separate headings in both the Personal statement and the Research Plan statement Intellectual Merit : potential to advance knowledge Broader Impacts: potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes. My son and his project have intellectual merit, and I'm sure that his professors can help him figure out how his project has broader impacts. But I think his application is weak on what he will say in his personal statement about broader impacts (which he has to put under a separate heading). This is what is says about broader impacts: "Broader impacts may be accomplished through the research itself, through the activities that are directly related to specific research projects, or through activities that are supported by, but are complementary to, the project. NSF values the advancement of scientific knowledge and activities that contribute to achievement of societally relevant outcomes. Such outcomes include, but are not limited to : full participation of women, persons with disabilities, and underrepresented minorities in STEM; improved STEM education and educator development at any level; increased public scientific literacy and public engagement with science and technology; improved well being of individual sin society; development of a diverse, globally competitive STEM workforce; increased partnership between academia, industry, and others; improved national security; increased economic competitiveness of the US; and enhanced infrastructure for research and education" So, we're a bit confused. He has to write both a personal statement and a research plan. Clearly, his professors will help him figure out how particle physics at CERN meets one or more of the items in the list for the research plan. But what about the personal statement? I was interpreting this as saying that he needs to have worked personally on one of these goals, so he was going for education because he has volunteered to tutor kids, is interested in helping out at AoPS as a mentor/halper, and will be helping with the HMMT math contest this year. But I am re-reading this statement and it seems like the project itself needs to do these things, and if so, I can't see how in his personal statement he is going to write about how he has used his time in particle physics to do outreach. How do you guys read this? Clearly, he is going to talk to his professors, but he would like to have thought about the application and have clear questions before talking to them and the grad office.

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moved to college board

Thank you so much 8, for taking the time to tell me all this! I need all the help I can get to give little hints to my son. 🙂 He is very clear on the need for research. He is currently working his a** off to try to get this paper published with CERN by the summer. The need for the outreach is because of the NSF Graduate Fellowship that he is going for. He must write separately about 4 things: his and his research's intellectual merit and his and his research's broader impacts. The Broader impacts section is where they seem to require my son to have demonstrated that he is committed to outreach to the public. I'm going to start another thread so I don't derail this one, and type up what the application requires and see how you guys would interpret it. ETA: made a new thread on the college board

Just be aware that not all DE is equivalent. You need to ask yourself how rigorous this work is. To transfer credits was a huge effort for us as it was clear that his university has found that lots of DE was not up to snuff. We had to provide not just his grade, but a course outline, the textbook and edition, the exact pages covered, the midterm and exam, a statement from the professor that it was closed book and taken under time pressure. So you may be finding DE easier than AP because it may actually be easier, and the universities she applies to may know that. In the end, my son found that DE was not worth his time (even though our local university is well respected), so he only had 2 DE and 3 AP-equivalent courses (we are outside the USA). The rest of his classes were homegrown and focused on his interests. He stood out because of all the international competitions he was invited to. Be warned, the competition is fierce, and getting fiercer. But more classes or more DE don't make you stand out. You need something besides standard school-directed academics.

We have found that top universities are looking to see that the students are giving back to the community. Dance and music are still self serving. I know this because my son is a very accomplished violinist but his applications asked specifically for what he has done for others. I would suggest to save time, that you make the leadership that she does at the dance studio more official. Find out if she can be a mentor, or volunteer as a teacher for younger kids, or create and run an after school program in dance over the summer. (obviously, this is all covid related, but you have a few years). Top schools are looking to see that you can make things happen, that you can share your experiences and knowledge to help others. It looks far better if you can create these opportunities than to just join an existing group. My son created an olympiad math program at a local school rather than just offering to help out at the math camp. It shows that you are proactive and passionate. Do not overlook this. My older boy and I are now having to scramble to get this done for grad school applications and scholarships because we just didn't think about it earlier.

Well, it looks like a lot to me. In our experience outside CC (and perhaps PA HS) courses suck time, and often with homework assignments that are long and not rigorous. Your son's math level is very high so he has time to slow down and dig deeper to develop stronger problem solving. AP exams force kids to memorize a ton of stuff without necessarily developing deep intuition. I would ask yourself if your son has the time to deeply internalize the work he is doing, as in my experience, these high level classes take more time to internalize than the time given in a class. I don't know if it would help you, but this is what my older boy did in 7th grade: Math: AoPS geometry, intro combinatorics, intro number theory. Science: Algebra based physics (that took 3 years to complete so 7th, 8th, 9th). Cover to cover reading of Scientific American Social studies: Early Modern read alouds with his dad. Cover to cover reading of Economist and National Geographic. English: Writing with mom. Reading through the classics (25 that year) Violin: 8th year with a tutor Mandarin: 3rd year with a tutor EC: string group, trio, badminton, martial arts, math camp. --- I would step back and see if there is a class that your son would like to direct -- to design, manage, and implement on his own. I'm not sure if he is interested in top universities and those that give good scholarships, but they like to see self direction, not just being good at doing what you are told to do in a class. Not sure if this is helpful, but just thought I would let you know that your son does not need to push. He is ahead enough that there is definitely time for bunny trails and time for self reflection and study.

There are the physics and the chemistry olympiads you could do. I know physics has more than one. You wouldn't want the one where you work as a team on problems all year and then defend your answers as a team. Go for the other one. 🙂

Cool! What do you recommend for improving my aqueous knowledge? I'm interested in cleaning up rivers and soil possibly from mines or landfills, so I'm thinking chemicals dissolving would be pretty important.

The key is that you have to get big picture exams, not bitsy ones. So you need to choose carefully. And you need to have good answers for all the essay questions to make sure that you have ALL the bits integrated into a whole. I like the NZ exams for this reason. They have them for physics and Bio also. Same site.

Well, I have definitely used the exams I posted to work through both Chemistry and Physics. First, I do a quick overview of the subtopic by reading the 2-4 or so chapters and not doing any problems (so the EM chapters for physics, or the equilibrium chapters for chem). Then, I tackle the exams, which of course I can't do because I haven't done any problems in the chapter, but the questions on the exams are much more global and complicated than the bitsy problems in and at the end of the chapter. I go back into the chapter and learn what I need to learn to be able to answer these big picture global problems. So for example the chemistry question I posted earlier requires a full chapter of knowledge to be learned and synthesized. I don't like doing tiny little questions that are so basic as to be mind numbing. So I tackle the big question on the exam to direct my learning in that subfield, and I find that keeping the big picture in view, I can make short work of integrating all the little bits into a whole. I also like that I know that once I can do 3 exams, I really have the content, and then each year I review by doing another exam. The goal is very clear. Do an exam. I'm not buried in a year's work of homework assignments that are designed for much younger people who don't have the kind of study skill set that I have.

Well you could start with the exams I posted above. Get the textbook Dicentra recommended and work backwards by hunting down what you need to answer the questions. But you can also do this for bigger questions in chemistry. Go figure out how fracking works. This was a major undertaking for me and brought together all sorts of chemistry content into a holistic understanding. For chemistry I have also done batteries, soap/detergent, and plastics. You could get a different question for each of the different areas of chemistry. Batteries is Redox. Soap and plastics is organic. Fracking is mostly precipitation (but way way more complex because of the varying pressure as you go down). Ocean acidification is Acid/Base. If you want to learn on your own by solving problems, these are big problems. You could do lots of little problems (like the organic one I gave above), but you are unlikely to build a holistic understanding on the first go.

Not_a_number, one of the things that I do sometimes is start with well-designed, high-level exams. I get the questions, get a feel for where I am headed, and then try to work to answer the different questions with any resources I have available. It might take me 10 hours to be able to answer a high level question, but it makes me feel like I am headed somewhere rather than just learning distinct little bits in a subject like chemistry. It helps to make a cohesive whole. This approach requires a basic background in chem that you probably have -- how is an atom structure, how does that affect bonding, how is the periodic table organized, etc. So for redox, the question I had is below. My goal was to build understanding with the full big picture question in front of me. Perhaps this would help you to make sure you see the forest and not just the trees. ------- This was a closed book test my son took that was about 4 hours long. (There is a diagram that is not copying in....) An electrochemical cell is set up using a platinum and copper electrodes and dilute solutions of potassium dichromate and copper nitrate. As the reaction proceeds the orange solution becomes green and the blue solution deepens in colour. One electrode becomes thinner. If a voltmeter is connected to the wires a voltage is recorded. Electrolytic Two carbon electrodes are inserted into an aqueous solution of copper bromide. The electrodes are joined by wires to a battery As the reaction proceeds, the green blue solution fades and a reddish orange liquid is seen at one electrode and the other electrode gets coated in an orange/brown solid. Write a report explaining why the reaction in the electrolytic cell is non-spontaneous and requires energy to be supplied, whereas the reaction in the electrochemical cell is spontaneous. In your report: • link observations to species involved in the reactions • identify the oxidant and the reductant as well as the oxidation and reduction reactions and justify these by referring to oxidation number changes and loss or gain of electrons • write balanced half and full oxidation-reduction equations • elaborate on the oxidation-reduction processes. Your answer should include links between observations, equations and calculations • calculate cell potentials and compare relative strength of oxidants using data provided to predict spontaneity of reaction