Research, even at the undergraduate level, is rare — in high school, it is beyond impressive. However, Lakeside has consistently shown that it is one of, if not the top school in the country when it comes to students’ scientific prowess. Will you become one of the several students who have represented Lakeside in national competitions?

The Science Talent Search (STS) is a competition for high school seniors only that attempts to select the best research projects out of almost 2,000 submissions. The requirements for submission are strict — students “must have completed an independent scientific investigation and have results to report. Research proposals, investigations not yet completed, literature reviews, and essays are not eligible for this competition.”

Beyond that there are few restrictions (other than those relating to formatting). Research in any field, from matrix multiplication to marine mammalogy to mitochondrial mapping, is perfectly acceptable for the competition. You can also submit any published research you have, though it is important to remember that the submission must be of your own individual work, without help from any others — be them students, professors or aliens. With that said, others can certainly review your work and suggest changes — Regeneron simply requires they “not provide…replacement text or rewrite any portion of the entry.”

Last year, Edward Y. ’23 became a STS finalist — among the top 300 — with the project “Turàn Problems for Mixed Graphs,” a study on crossings between different paths in a directed graph. His project was a result of his participation in MIT-PRIMES, a math research program that spans one year, and though he had a mentor for his project, he completed it individually. For those interested, his paper is available on arxiv.org, though it is very dense reading.