[ph0rque]

> Andrew Yeager, a professor at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, has been judging the ISEF for nine years and the Intel Science Talent Search for more than 20. "The level of sophistication in these projects is in many cases beyond the level of graduate school and doctoral research," Yeager says.

So why not award them graduate school degrees?

[timr]

Because he's exaggerating. The work may be of graduate-quality, but that's because these kids' are usually coddled by the scientists who take them into the lab.

There's a world of difference between doing good science when you're being doted-upon by a professor and post-doc, versus doing it on your own as a graduate student. These kids are smart and motivated, but they're still living a privileged life.

[jrockway]

Incidentally, this says more about the low quality of grad school research than the high quality of these kids' research.

[sealedidentity]

Certainly, from what I've seen, you can easily get away with little work at grad school.