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Introduction
General Rules and Guidelines
Classes and Clubs
Extracurriculars
Carpe Diem
- Internships
Olympiad Camps
Research Projects
Research vs. Camps
Standardized Exams
Resume-boosting Activities to Avoid
Applying to College
Factors You Can't Control
Conclusion
About

A GUIDE TO THE SCIENCES AT

TJHSST

Opportunities for the motivated student

akshaj kadaveru

anish karpurapu

nikhil sardana

joshua lee

franklyn wang

Contributors:

Eric Lin Neil Thistlethwaite John Kim

Justin Zhang Aaditya Singh Mihir Patel

CONTENTS

1 introduction 4

1.1Disclaimer ..................... 4

1.2Overview...................... 5

1.3The Scope of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 general rules and guidelines 7

3 classes and clubs 9

3.1SummerClasses.................. 9

3.2SkipTests...................... 10

3.3APPhysics..................... 13

3.4Other Curriculum Information . . . . . . . . . 14

3.5Activities and Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

4 extracurriculars 19

5 carpe diem 26

5.1Internships..................... 27

6 olympiad camps 29

6.1Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program . . 31

6.2USA Computing Olympiad Camp . . . . . . . 34

6.3USA Biology Olympiad Camp . . . . . . . . . 36

6.4U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad Camp . . . 37

6.5USA Physics Olympiad Camp . . . . . . . . . 39

6.6OtherCamps ................... 42

7 research projects 43

7.1WorkinginaLab ................. 44

7.1.1NIH Summer Internship Program . . . 46

7.1.2ASSIP.................... 49

7.2Research Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

7.2.1Research Science Institute . . . . . . . . 52

7.2.2PRIMES-USA ............... 54

Contents 3

7.3Independent Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

7.4Competing With Your Project . . . . . . . . . . 57

7.4.1Siemens Competition . . . . . . . . . . . 57

7.4.2Intel International Science & Engineer-

ing Fair (ISEF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

7.4.3Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS) 62

7.4.4Davidson Fellows Scholarships . . . . . 63

7.4.5Google Science Fair . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

8 research vs.camps 66

9 standardized exams 70

10 resume-boosting activities to avoid 72

11 applying to college 75

11.1Terminology.................... 75

11.2Early Action & Early Decision . . . . . . . . . . 76

11.3In-State vs. Out-of-State . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

11.4Applying to Top Universities . . . . . . . . . . 78

11.4.1College-speciﬁc Information . . . . . . 81

11.4.2The Main Takeaway . . . . . . . . . . . 82

11.5FinalThoughts .................. 82

12 factors you can’t control 84

13 conclusion 86

a about 89

INTRODUCTION

We are a current group of seniors at Thomas Jefferson High

School (Class of 2018). Given our experiences over the past

four years, and our naive view of high school just a few

short years ago, we wish to highlight some misconceptions

and provide tips to those who may come after us.

This is a terse guide to the sciences at Thomas Jefferson

High School. It is designed for current and future TJ stu-

dents with STEM interests. This guide focuses on many

of the opportunities available to a TJ STEM student both

inside and outside the classroom.

1.1 disclaimer

Take our advice with a grain of salt. Your experiences may

differ. Facts, ﬁgures, and statistics will change over time;

their accuracy is not guaranteed. This book is a reﬂection

of our experiences, which comprise a fraction of the oppor-

tunities at TJ. We are not responsible for the choices you

make based on this material, or your admission or rejection

to any higher education institution.

This book is not endorsed or afﬁliated with TJHSST or

any related organization. It has not been reviewed or edited

by any member of the TJ faculty or administration.

1.2 overview 5

1.2 overview

The layout of the book is as follows. The next chapter is

simply a list of guiding principles that you should try to

follow over your high school career. Chapter 3provides

information on TJ academic opportunities, and Chapter 4

gives a summary of important STEM clubs at TJ. Chapter 5

gives advice when deciding which activities to pursue.

Chapters 6–8are the meat of the book. They provide

information on two tracks a STEM student can take through

high school: Olympiad camps and research. Each of the

authors has seen some success in camps or research, and

each provides their insight, advice, and words of warning

for your journey.

Chapters 9–12 turn towards the inevitable conclusion of

your TJ career: college. Since most of your success/failure

in the college admissions process will be determined by

your accomplishments (hence the focus on camps and re-

search in earlier chapters), Chapters 9–12 are fairly short ex-

planations of the other factors (standardized exams, resume-

boosting activities, applying early vs. regular, etc). You

shouldn’t start thinking about colleges until the end of ju-

nior year, so this information is geared towards rising se-

niors. However, it may still be helpful for younger students

to skim the material.

1.3 the scope of this book

There are plenty of humanities opportunities at TJ. TJ boasts

some of the ﬁnest ﬁne arts programs, from nationally rec-

ognized orchestra, band, and choir programs, to the award-

winning yearbook and Teknos publication. Hundreds of TJ

1.3 the scope of this book 6

students play instruments outside of school—from the pi-

ano and violin to the saxophone and bagpipes. Hundreds

of others participate in sports, from the relaxed cross coun-

try team to the grueling schedule of basketball and football.

This guide makes no attempt to cover any of these op-

portunities. The authors only have experience and accom-

plishments in ﬁelds of science, technology, and mathemat-

ics. This book is a guide for students who enjoy the sciences,

and want to take their academic interests further—into com-

petitions, research, and projects. All of our advice centers

around the basic assumption that you enjoy the sciences,

and want opportunities to further your knowledge and in-

terest in the ﬁeld. As such, almost none of this book will

be useful for students fully engrossed in the humanities or

athletics. Even our college advice centers around our ex-

periences and knowledge of previous STEM students. We

have no knowledge of which athletic, artistic, literary, or

musical accomplishments and competitions colleges histor-

ically prefer.

GENERAL RULES AND GUIDELINES

1. Don’t cheat.

2. Don’t be complacent.

3. Waste a maximum of half your time. No one expects

you to always be productive, but you probably waste

more time than you realize online or playing games.

4. It is important you have time to relax and unwind.

You should not take on more than you can handle.

5. Get sleep. There will be a tendency to stay up later

and later to ﬁnish work.

6. Finish work ahead of time. Or, at the very least, by

midnight the night before.

7. Each year, you will become more efﬁcient at complet-

ing your work. Congratulations! Unfortunately, your

efﬁciency will increase solely because of a similar in-

crease in your coursework. Thus, the most important

thing you can do to increase your time for outside ac-

tivities is to complete your homework as soon as you

get home from school. Unfortunately, you will most

likely be tired and burned-out by the end of the day.

Work through this.

general rules and guidelines 8

8. Try to enjoy your time at TJ.

9. Play a sport if you aren’t bad at it.

10. Although we encourage students to try many activi-

ties outside of their comfort zone, quitting after a sea-

son, semester, or year is not an indication of failure.

Don’t ﬂounder around once you realize an activity is

not for you; cut your losses and move on (assuming

you have made no outstanding commitments to oth-

ers).

11. To a certain extent, grades don’t really matter. Try

to get A’s and A-’s. Don’t worry about maximizing

your GPA. Don’t work harder than you need to for

school. Extracurricular activities are more important.

You will spend far less time on schoolwork if you have

a strong math background and decent writing/BSing

ability.

CLASSES AND CLUBS

Many of you were interested in STEM in middle school;

that is why you are here! First, we recommend you identify

what subject you ﬁnd the most interesting. Some possibili-

ties include math, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering

(rocketry, robotics, etc.), or computer science. Students are

generally introduced to STEM ﬁelds through either classes

and clubs. Thus, we provide some advice for choosing your

coursework and which clubs to participate in.

3.1 summer classes

Don’t take classes you aren’t interested in. The only excep-

tions occur in the summer before 9th grade. We recommend

you do one of the following:

•Take Research Statistics. This aligns your math sched-

ule with the school year.

•Get your 4th history credit out of the way. You will

not regret it senior year, and it is a great way to meet

your fellow classmates before September.

Do not take summer chemistry after 9th grade unless:

3.2 skip tests 10

•You know ahead of time you really enjoy chemistry.

Maybe it’s from Chemistry Team or Chemistry Soci-

ety. Just know that if you liked 9th grade biology,

you’re not necessarily going to like chemistry. They

are very different courses.

•You want to take AP Physics in 10th grade. Physics

in 10th grade is a great opportunity, especially if you

are strong in math or have attended Physics Team.

•You believe you cannot spend your summer in a more

productive manner, such as conducting a research project

or studying for a camp. In this case, summer chem-

istry can be beneﬁcial (turning an otherwise unpro-

ductive summer into a learning experience).

If you only want to take summer chemistry because you get

bored during the summer, see Chapter 5.

Note that you can now take AP Physics in sophomore

year as an elective; instead of taking summer chemistry, you

can take P.E. or a language online (e.g. Spanish 3online) to

free up an elective slot.

3.2 skip tests

If you are bored in your current math class, and want more

of a challenge, you may wish to skip math courses. TJ offers

three options to skip math courses:

•TJ Math 4skip test (Offered in June to rising freshmen,

in August to everyone else)

•TJ Math 5skip test (Offered in August to everyone)

•BC Calculus Exam (Get a 5on the Exam + Have A’s

in all other HS math courses)

3.2 skip tests 11

If you wish to skip a math course, we recommend taking

the BC Calculus exam, because getting a 5requires a min-

imum of 70% correct, and it allows you to skip an entire

year of math. This may be especially helpful to students

who wish to take AP Physics and Multivariable Calculus

concurrently. The other skip tests only allow you to skip

a semester of math, throwing off your schedule. With that

said, you should only skip a math course if you are conﬁ-

dent in your mathematical ability. If you can’t excel in a

higher level of math, you probably shouldn’t be skipping

in the ﬁrst place.

If, as a rising freshman, you are interested in computer

science, we highly recommend skipping ‘Foundations of

Computer Science’. The skip test is available in August,

and a disk of material is sent out in early June. You must ap-

ply in May, getting signatures from your math teacher and

counselor. The forms can be found on the TJ CS website.

You must score ≥90% to skip Foundations. This will re-

quire you to understand basic programming logic and Java

syntax. You must be motivated enough to learn this mate-

rial on your own between your acceptance in April and the

exam in August. The primary way to learn this material is

by working through the seven packets given on the disk. It

is more than doable with no prior experience and requires

only time commitment.

If you do not pass the exam or are unable to take the skip

test, we highly recommend taking ‘Foundations of Com-

puter Science Accelerated’, where you will learn Python

for the ﬁrst three quarters, and then rush through Java in

a quarter. Generally, students who take Accelerated are

already familiar with some Java, but not enough to pass

the skip test. It is still possible to take this class without

programming familiarity, and a few students do so. It is

3.2 skip tests 12

also possible to drop to Foundations if you ﬁnd yourself

unprepared. That being said, if you aren’t interested in

computer science, or if you haven’t taken the initiative to at

least dabble in computer science, Accelerated is probably

not for you.

There are no other skip tests available at TJ. However,

if you are advanced enough to take an AP exam in middle

school (AP Computer Science A, AP Biology, AP Chemistry,

etc.), TJ will allow you to skip directly to the Post-AP course

(AI, Neurobiology, Organic chemistry, etc.). This is rare and

extraordinarily difﬁcult unless you are a genius (except for

the APCS test, which is possible to take in 8th grade if you

are introduced to computer science early enough).

Some might ask: Why skip courses when I can enjoy an

easy A? Simply put, you should skip courses only if you

care about learning more than grades. Spending a year in

a class where you already know the curriculum is a waste

of time, so skipping the course allows you to learn more.

Another advantage of taking advanced courses early is to

gain knowledge which can then be applied in competitions

or research projects. Although a TJ education alone will cer-

tainly not prepare you for creating research projects or par-

ticipating in Olympiad competitions, having a solid foun-

dation early from a year-long class goes a long way in your

success. This is why most students who do well in US-

APhO take AP Physics C sophomore year, most USACO

campers take APCS freshman year, and most students who

do well in USNCO take summer chemistry. These students

are interested early on in the ﬁeld, and take steps to accel-

erate their in-class experience, which greatly impact their

performance in outside competitions.

3.3 ap physics 13

3.3 ap physics

If you are unsure if you want to take AP Physics junior

year, you should keep in mind the following things. If you

are in Multivariable calculus junior year, the topics covered

(gradients, line integrals, ﬂux integrals, etc.) are used in

AP Physics second semester. The vast majority of juniors in

Multivariable calculus take AP Physics concurrently.

If you are in BC Calculus junior year, there are a few

caveats. You should only take AP Physics if you did not

need to study to do well in Precalculus. Math should have

been easy for you through freshman and sophomore year.

In addition, to perform well in AP Physics, you should

learn some of BC Calculus beforehand. The BC Calculus

Blackboard site is open to all; download the material be-

fore the end of the previous school year. Work through the

ﬁrst seven chapters before September junior year. A great

alternative is to simply work through a Calculus textbook;

the Art of Problem Solving Calculus book is highly recom-

mended because it delves deeper into Calculus than the BC

material in a compact 300 pages.

For all students considering AP Physics, know that physics

differs from the previous science courses in that it is essen-

tially applied math. You should enjoy math and problem-

solving. You do not need to have enjoyed your previous

science courses.

It will become apparent very quickly whether AP Physics

for you or not. The workload is somewhat intensive and

the ﬁrst tests are very representative of your future perfor-

mance. Unless you signiﬁcantly change your time commit-

ments or studying habits, do not expect your grade to rise

after ﬁrst quarter. Knowing when to drop is very impor-

tant.

3.4 other curriculum information 14

3.4 other curriculum information

Freshmen making their course selections for sophomore

year are often presented with the following elective choice:

AP Biology/AP Chemistry or AP Computer Science. Choose

one, or spend half your summer in summer chemistry to

take both. We would like readers in this situation to be

aware that if neither AP Biology nor AP CS interests you,

some of the tech classes (Engineering Design, Prototyping,

Robotics, etc.) may be more suitable, especially if you en-

joyed Design and Tech. Few sophomores take these courses,

partially because they do not have a GPA boost (Honors

tech classes vs. AP CS/Bio), but also partially because they

are not emphasized during course selection time. It is cer-

tainly true with technology classes that what you put into it

is what you get out—they are notoriously easy grade-wise,

and it is very easy to spend a year without retaining much

knowledge. However, putting effort into technology classes

will result in long-term practical technology skills.

3.5 activities and clubs

Even more important than choosing your courses is choos-

ing which activities to participate in. You cannot do them

all. Sorry. It is far better to do 2–3activities very well than

10 activities with mediocre results.

It’s not hard to choose what you are interested in. There

are a million and a half clubs at TJ—try them! Do not go

to study halls. Waste few 8th periods at TJ. Once you ﬁnd

a club you like, go to meetings every week. If there are

after school meetings, go to those. If you realize you don’t

actually like that club, then stop going.

3.5 activities and clubs 15

Note that there will be a tendency to join clubs that align

with your current coursework. For example, joining Biol-

ogy Olympiad as you take 9th grade biology, Chemistry

Team during your 10th grade, or Physics Team during 11th

grade. Before commiting weekly to a club, consider the fol-

lowing: would you attend the club if you weren’t currently

taking a course on the subject? Joining Biology Olympiad,

then Chemistry Team, then Physics Team, each for a year,

gets you nowhere in all three subjects. Concentrate on clubs

with subjects that interest you; you should not need a class

to motivate you towards a subject which you are truly inter-

ested in.

Certain clubs are more valuable than others. Chess Club,

for example, is a great place to play chess with your friends.

However, you can easily do this outside of the club. Don’t

spend every Friday A&B playing chess, even if you really

enjoy chess. Rather, attend clubs that provide experiences

you cannot enjoy readily outside of the club. Sure, go to

chess club, but one block a week sufﬁces.

As with every example, there are exceptions. If you are

training for chess tournaments, and want prolonged peri-

ods to play against the best in the school, by all means, at-

tend 90 minutes of Chess Club a week. But for the vast ma-

jority, clubs like Chess Club are opportunities to just hang

out with friends.

Certainly the majority of clubs at TJ fall into this category.

There are a few clubs, however, that provide valuable learn-

ing experiences. We call these clubs the “legit" clubs. For

example, Physics Team. It is difﬁcult to learn physics in-

dependently; Physics Team provides a unique opportunity

for you to learn from experienced physics students. Obvi-

ously, 45 minutes a week of physics is not nearly enough

to learn the subject. However, it is certainly enough to in-

3.5 activities and clubs 16

troduce physics topics to underclassmen well before they

would otherwise encounter them in their junior year. Stu-

dents who wish to pursue the subject further now have a

year or two head-start on their peers. Thus, “legit" clubs

serve as starting points for students entering a ﬁeld of sci-

ence or technology.

By and large, “legit" clubs derive their legitimacy from

national competitions. By this, we mean that the national

competitions drive students to dedicate signiﬁcant time to

the club year after year, thus creating a comprehensive learn-

ing experience for younger members. “Legit" clubs provide

an opportunity for you to hone your skills, and then demon-

strate them on a national level. Try to participate in one

legit club. If no legit clubs interest you, that’s perfectly

ﬁne. That probably means there’s no national competition

in your desired ﬁeld.

List of some “legit" STEM academic clubs:

•Math Team

•Physics Team

•Senior Computer Team (open to everyone)

•Intermediate Computer Team (open to everyone)

•Freshman Computer Team (freshmen only)

•Machine Learning Club

•Biology Olympiad

•Chemistry Team

•Science Bowl

•Computer Security

3.5 activities and clubs 17

We are certain there are other “legit" clubs. This is by

no means a complete list. However, the authors only have

expertise in the academic ﬁelds of math, physics, computer

science, and biology. “Legit" clubs in the humanities ﬁelds

(MUN, Quizbowl, Debate, etc.) are outside the scope of this

guide. If you would like to contact the authors regarding

the legitimacy of a club, we are open to suggestions.

Note that you can always found a club if there is no club

in your speciﬁc ﬁeld. We caution against two things:

•Making a “club" version of a niche class. If you are in-

terested in Parallel Computing, there’s already a class.

A club is unnecessary.

•If no national competition exists, it will be very hard

for your club to become “legit". You will have to moti-

vate 30 others to join your interest without providing

them any tangible beneﬁt.

A few further things to keep in mind about starting your

own club:

•Your club should be centered a topic students will

genuinely come to learn.

•You should create rigorous and extensive material to

teach students. This will be a time-consuming pro-

cess, even with multiple ofﬁcers. It is far more work

to create a new club than to preside over an existing

organization.

•Students are not inclined to learn from their peers.

Lectures will only be attended by students younger

than the lecturers.

3.5 activities and clubs 18

•The inaugural year of a club is almost always “BS".

It is very difﬁcult to create new club lectures, compe-

titions, or other presentations while simultaneously

completing your school duties.

•Forms and paperwork will result in a shorter inaugu-

ral year for clubs. Most new clubs cannot start before

Mid-November as a result.

EXTRACURRICULARS

We provide a brief description of each of the “legit" STEM

clubs from Chapter 3. This information may be especially

helpful to younger students who are unfamiliar with many

of the clubs, activities, and competitions.

Simply attending one of these clubs during 8th period

won’t help you much. If you want to participate or place

well in the national competitions each club offers, you’ll

need to spend signiﬁcant time outside of school practicing

and learning.

math team

By Akshaj Kadaveru (VMT Captain 16–18)

Math Team meets Wednesday A and B blocks, plus cer-

tain days afterschool. At meetings we give lectures, hold

practices, and participate in regional and national math con-

tests. We also travel to compete in many big-name math

competitions. Any TJ student who enjoys math is welcome

to join the team, regardless of skill level.

Competitions we participate in include the Duke Math

Meet (DMM), Princeton University Math Competition (PuMAC),

Carnegie Mellon Informatics and Math Meet (CMIMC), Harvard-

extracurriculars 20

MIT Math Tournament (HMMT), and the American Regions

Math League (ARML).

Website: activities.tjhsst.edu/vmt

physics team

By Franklyn Wang (Physics Team Co-captain 17–18)

Physics Team meets on Friday A blocks. Physics Team is

stratiﬁed into A team, B team, and C team. A team’s focus

is to prepare for the USA Physics Olympiad exam. B team’s

focus is to prepare for the F=ma exam as well as the AP

Physics Exam. Lastly, C team’s focus is cool demonstrations

to get students interested in physics.

Physics Team competes in the Physics Bowl, Princeton

University Physics Competition, the F=ma exam, and the

USA Physics Olympiad.

Physics Team ofﬁcers are decided by appointment, NOT

elections.

Website: activities.tjhsst.edu/physics

senior computer team

By Justin Zhang (SCT Captain 17–18) and Mihir Patel (SCT Co-Captain

17–18)

Senior Computer Team (SCT) meets on Friday A blocks.

SCT, unlike the other two computer teams, focuses heavily

on algorithms and data structures, in preparation for the

USA Computing Olympiad. In addition, SCT sends teams

of four to local algorithmic competitions such as VCU, UMD,

and UVA’s high school programming contests.

extracurriculars 21

Meetings are generally split into beginner and advanced

groups, which cover USACO Bronze/Silver and USACO

Gold/Platinum content, respectively. Practice contests are

occasionally held via the Codeforces platform.

In general, if you only have time to participate in one

computer team, and you enjoy learning advanced algorithms

and data structures, participate in SCT: achievements in US-

ACO are generally valued over those of ACSL. Top USACO

competitors go to USACO Camp, and from there the very

best attend IOI.

With that said, SCT requires a lot of initiative. The vast

majority of competitive programming skill is built off of

lots of practice. SCT gives you lots of resources and op-

portunity, but getting good requires consistent practice and

dedication. The best ways to improve are taking lots of

Codeforces competitions and going through the USACO

training pages.

Prior years’ lectures can be found on the SCT website.

Website: activities.tjhsst.edu/sct

intermediate computer team

By Mihir Patel (ICT Captain 16–17)

Intermediate Computer Team (ICT) meets on Friday B

blocks. ICT primarily focuses on the ACSL competition,

competing in the tier above the freshman team. The lectures

are speciﬁcally geared towards content on the upcoming

ACSL competitions and are taught by the ofﬁcers, who are

almost exclusively juniors. ICT also participates in various

algorithmic competitions.

extracurriculars 22

ACSL is not very prestigious and not useful for resume-

building. As a result, if you are good at competitive pro-

gramming, it is not worth your time to come to ICT. With

that said, if you are still getting into it and genuinely like

ACSL’s competition, ICT is a good club to be in.

The primary beneﬁt from ICT is a fun trip to the ACSL

competition if you make the team (in addition to potential

ofﬁcer positions). Making the team is not too challenging if

you really care, and a bit of practice easily makes you com-

petitive. As for being an ofﬁcer, that’s far more dependent

on your charisma, dedication, and ability to teach. This is a

decent position and often helps in being elected for SCT.

The ACSL competition focuses on computer fundamen-

tals. Topics include number systems, bit shifting, etc. and

the test is not complex at all. Even 45 minutes of practice

before each test is more than necessary for preparation.

Website: activities.tjhsst.edu/ict

freshman computer team

By Justin Zhang (Participant 14–15)

Freshman Computer Team meets on Friday A blocks, and

is open exclusively to freshman. Freshman Computer Team

focuses on general computer science knowledge in prepara-

tion for the American Computer Science League program-

ming contest (ACSL).

Based on contests given throughout the year, the Fresh-

man Computer Team selects a team to represent TJ at the

ACSL All-Star Contest (junior division).

Freshman Computer Team does not have ofﬁcer positions.

extracurriculars 23

machine learning club

By Nikhil Sardana (TJML Captain 16–18)

Machine Learning Club meets on Wednesday A blocks.

Machine Learning Club teaches students the theory behind

various machine learning algorithms. Topics range from

decision trees and SVMs to Convolutional and Generative

Adversarial Networks. ML Club also holds competitions

most weeks, applying theory introduced in the lectures to

real-world datasets. Many of the topics covered are fre-

quently used in research projects at science fairs and com-

petitions nationally, so Machine Learning Club provides a

solid foundation for burgeoning researchers. In addition,

ofﬁcers actively mentor students with machine learning re-

search projects at their request.

Website: tjmachinelearning.com

biology olympiad

By Anish Karpurapu (TJBO Captain 17–18)

Biology Olympiad meets every Friday B block. During

8th periods, the ofﬁcers teach advanced biology concepts

to help prepare for competitions such as the USA Biology

Olympiad and University of Toronto Biology Competition.

On most Fridays after school from 4–6, Biology Olympiad

meets to provide an additional opportunity for practice. Af-

ter spending an hour individually working on previous ex-

ams, the ofﬁcers go through the answers and explanations

for each of the questions at the request of the club members.

Website: tjbio.webs.com

extracurriculars 24

chemistry team

By John Kim (Chemistry Team Captain 17–18)

Chemistry Team meets every Friday B block (though this

is subject to change due to Mr. Kauffman’s busy sched-

ule). The majority of meetings are spent with lectures that

ﬁrst brieﬂy review AP Chemistry material and then present

more advanced topics that may appear on the Chemistry

Olympiad and the Chem 13 News exam. Since the USNCO

includes a lab section, a lab challenge is often conducted in

lieu of a lecture so that all members can hone their practical

problem solving skills.

Website: activities.tjhsst.edu/chemteam

science bowl

By Franklyn Wang (Science Bowl Captain 16–18)

Science Bowl meets during lunches, and is intended to

select a team for the National Science Bowl competition.

At the beginning of the school year, each student takes an

exam. The top few students advance to a buzzer round,

where the team is decided. There is a Regional competition

in late January and a National Competition in mid-May. TJ

has qualiﬁed for Nationals for the past 25 years. Teams

which take ﬁrst or second at Nationals win an all-expense

paid trip.

extracurriculars 25

computer security club

By Neil Thistlethwaite (TJCSC President 17–18)

Computer Security Club (CSC) meets every Wednesday

A and B block. Ofﬁcers give a different lecture and asso-

ciated practice problems each week, although the lecture

is the same for A and B block. Topic categories include

File Forensics, Web Exploitation, Binary Exploitation, and

Reversing. CSC members compete in a variety of compe-

titions, primarily Capture-the-Flag (CTF) contests. We also

organize the CyberPatriot teams, and have historically done

very well, netting top ﬁnishes in many competitions.

Website: activities.tjhsst.edu/csc

non-traditional clubs

•Sysadmins — Manage/Develop Syslab network and

computer hardware.

•CubeSat — Design/Build TJ’s satellite

other

Other legitimate activities (which are not necessarily associ-

ated with clubs):

•HackTJ — TJ’s annual hackathon. A fun way to spend

24 hours: eating food and building useless applica-

tions.

•MIT Battlecode — Month-long AI/battle strategy com-

petition every January; TJ students frequently partici-

pate.

CARPE DIEM

Don’t waste your time. If you like a certain subject in

class, look for the 8th period and after-school opportunities.

Don’t be afraid to join a club in the middle of the school

year—it’s not too late, and you can’t go back in time to join

earlier. Look at club websites for lecture information and

talk to the ofﬁcers to catch up on what you missed. In gen-

eral, however, try to join clubs as early in the school year as

possible.

Whether it is math or biology or chemistry, we recom-

mend ﬁnding at least one activity with a national competi-

tion (see “legit" clubs section in Chapter 3), and working to-

wards performing well at the national or international level.

For most areas, this will take years of work. Do not par-

ticipate or try for a national competition which you are not

truly interested in. Not sure if you want to commit so much

time towards an activity? You can always quit later. It’s best

to try and quit than to never try at all.

During the summers, either work towards a camp or com-

plete some research/project. Look to Chapters 6and 7for

camp and research advice, respectively. If you have neither

the desire to work towards a camp nor the skill set for re-

search, simply ﬁnd a friend and complete a project in your

area. You will learn valuable skills and working with a

5.1 internships 27

friend (in person, not online) is a motivator to hold up your

end of the team and prevent laziness. Long term projects

are as much a test of your ability to solve large problems as

they are a test of planning and execution.

5.1 internships

Some students ﬁnd internships and work at start-ups or

established companies during the summer (especially be-

tween junior and senior year). Depending on your ﬁeld of

interest, you may want to pursue a corporate internship.

For example, if you are interested in web/mobile devel-

opment, it can be highly beneﬁcial to gain real-world ex-

perience creating applications in a corporate environment.

With other ﬁelds, however, like pure math or physics, you

are far better off conducting research, working towards a

camp, or simply completing your own project. Few compa-

nies have high school internships that allow you to harness

and apply your knowledge of the pure sciences. Regard-

less of your interests, ensure that you will have a meaning-

ful role and gain valuable experience before accepting any

job offers. Do not waste weeks of your precious summer

slaving away on meaningless busywork for an extra line on

your resume.

In terms of your resume, no one cares if you worked for

<insert start-up> for 7weeks between sophomore and ju-

nior year. Company name matters for internships, but few

established companies are willing to hire high school stu-

dents. Thus, choose an internship based on how useful the

experience will be to you.

Before applying, contact older students who worked at

the company in previous years. They will offer you advice

5.1 internships 28

on the application and interview process, as well as what

to expect on the job site. Get multiple opinions whenever

possible.

OLYMPIAD CAMPS

The International Science Olympiads are a group of com-

petitions across the scientiﬁc ﬁelds open to students across

the world. At each Olympiad, the top 4–6students from

each country compete against each other. Students can

be awarded Gold medals, Silver medals, Bronze medals,

or Honourable mentions for their performance. Since the

United States is a large country, in general, we perform very

well at the Olympiads. Most United States Olympiad par-

ticipants walk away with Gold or Silver medals.

Since the United States is so large, simply qualifying for

a U.S. Olympiad team (determining the top 4–6students in

a particular ﬁeld) is a rigorous process and attending an in-

ternational olympiad is a prestigious and rare accomplish-

ment. For example, the last student from Thomas Jefferson

to attend an international olympiad was Joyce Tian (TJ ’17,

IChO Silver Medal 2016). Before that, Janice Ong (TJ ’15)

won Silver at IChO 2015 and Will Long (TJ ’15) won Gold

at the 2014 IBO. Adam Ardeishar (TJ ’19) will attend IMO

2018, the ﬁrst IMO participant from TJ since Mitchell Lee

(IMO Gold 11–12). In general, a TJ student qualiﬁes for one

of the Olympiads every 1–2years. It takes years of prepa-

olympiad camps 30

ration and intense studying to qualify for an international

olympiad.

Although there are more than 5International Olympiads,

the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), Interna-

tional Physics Olympiad (IPhO), International Olympiad in

Informatics (IOI), International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO),

and International Biology Olympiad (IBO) are far more pres-

tigious and important than the others. Thus, this chapter

focuses on the U.S. selection process for these Olympiads.

Each Olympiad has a different process, but in general

they begin with a few qualifying tests, each far more difﬁ-

cult than the last, and culminate in a camp, in which the

top 2–3dozen students are sent off to a university for a few

weeks in May/June to determine the 4–6team members

who will represent the United States. Thus, the general

process for reaching an international olympiad looks like

this:

Open Exam →Semiﬁnal Exam →Camp →Olympiad

At each stage, perhaps the top 5% will qualify. Some

camps have more than 2qualifying tests. Others have tests

after the camp to determine the Olympiad team. For most

Olympiads, reaching the “Semiﬁnal Exam" level of the pro-

cess requires about a year of coursework or studying. How-

ever, reaching the camp stage is far more difﬁcult, and

many students study on-and-off for years without ever reach-

ing a camp. The notable exception to this general Exams →

Camp process is the USA Computing Olympiad, which es-

chews exams for 4programming tests through the year.

For high school students, attending a camp in their ﬁeld

means nearing the pinnacle of achievement. The ﬁve camps

listed below have rigorous standards to gain admission,

6.1 mathematical olympiad summer program 31

and just attending a single camp is a signiﬁcant accomplish-

ment.

Attending the USABO Camp is roughly as difﬁcult as

attending the USNCO Camp. Both are more difﬁcult to

attend than the USACO camp, and both are less difﬁcult

(and therefore less prestigious) than the USAPhO camp.

All aforementioned camps are less difﬁcult and prestigious

than MOP.

6.1 mathematical olympiad summer program

By Joshua Lee (MOP 17) and Akshaj Kadaveru (MOP 15–16)

TJHSST dedicates one day in February for the AMC 10/12

A, a nationwide math competition for high school students.

AMC 10 is only open to freshmen and sophomores, and the

AMC 12 is open to all students, but a student can only take

one of the two. AMC 10/12 B is also offered, but this will

be done during an 8th period instead of during the school

day.

Placing within the top 5% on any AMC 12 or the top 2.5%

on any AMC 10 will qualify a student for the AIME (Ameri-

can Invitational Mathematics Examination). The AIME takes

place in March, and around one hundred TJ students par-

ticipate yearly. A combined USA(J)MO index is then calcu-

lated, and approximately 250 students with the top AIME +

AMC 12 indices qualify for the USAMO, and approximately

250 students with the top AIME + AMC 10 indices qualify

for the USAJMO. If a student qualiﬁes for both, they must

take the USAMO. Qualifying for USA(J)MO is already a sig-

niﬁcant achievement, only done by around 15 TJ students

every year. It is important to know that Olympiad Math

6.1 mathematical olympiad summer program 32

is proof-based, which means that it is quite different from

other competition math (such as the AMC or the AIME).

USA(J)MO is held for two days in mid-late April. The

top 12 performers of JMO (short for USAJMO) are the Win-

ners, and they qualify for Red MOP. The next top 12 per-

formers are given the title of Honorable Mention (HM), but

they aren’t given MOP qualiﬁcation unless under special

circumstances (for instance, if a JMO winner is in middle

school and placed in the lower half of the winners, then

the top HM is invited to MOP). The top 12 performers of

USAMO are the Winners, and they qualify for Black MOP,

unless they are a senior and did not qualify for the IMO

team. The winners are invited to a ceremony in DC in

June, immediately before MOP, and the top 3performers

are awarded scholarships. The next 12 performers are the

HMs, but it really is just a title. Instead, the top 18 perform-

ing non-winners who are juniors or younger are invited to

Blue MOP, and the next 15 students who are freshmen or

sophomores are invited to Green MOP.

MOP is the training camp for the USA IMO Team, and

is held for 3.5weeks in June. MOP is divided into ﬁve

colors: Black, Blue, Green, Red, Pink. Black is the highest

level, containing the members of the IMO, winners of US-

AMO, past winners, and international students (Po-shen in-

vites 10–15 international students to MOP every year). The

next highest level is Blue MOP, serving as a bridge between

Red/Green and Black MOP. The third level is Green/Red.

The two colors are meant to be the same level, with the

difference coming from the fact that Red MOP consists of

JMO winners and Green MOP of high USAMO performers.

Recently, this changed to Red MOP consisting of ﬁrst-time

MOPpers and Green MOP consisting of returners, although

this rule wasn’t enforced entirely. Rules on Green/Red

6.1 mathematical olympiad summer program 33

MOP change continuously, but the two levels always have

lectures of similar levels and take the same tests. The last

level is Pink MOP, reserved for the top performing girls on

the USA(J)MO who didn’t otherwise qualify for MOP. Pink

MOP serves to train and select students for the EGMO, and

around 10 girls are selected each year. Pink MOPpers usu-

ally attend Red/Green MOP lectures and take Red/Green

MOP tests.

At MOP, students continually take MOP tests, which are

tests similar to the IMO and intended for students to im-

prove both problem-solving and solution-writing. On the

last week, the students are administered the TSTST, and

the top 25-ish contestants are selected to be part of the

TST group for the following school year. These students,

along with the Pink MOPpers, take ﬁve additional contests

throughout the school year to determine the national IMO,

RMM and EGMO teams.

Although there are many great books on competition

math out there, there is not one book that will take a stu-

dent right to the doorsteps of MOP. Qualifying for AIME

can mostly be done by continually solving past AMC prob-

lems, and one can get near USA(J)MO qualiﬁcation by re-

peatedly solving past AIME problems. A student must

have extensive knowledge in all four major ﬁelds of compe-

tition math: Algebra, Geometry, Combinatorics, and Num-

ber Theory. USAMO qualiﬁcation barely requires a student

to solve 10 problems correctly on the AIME, but a student

with great understanding of the topics should easily be able

to solve all 15 problems.

Doing well on the USAMO requires slightly different train-

ing than for the AIME, as the focus is shifted to proving

a mathematical claim rather than solving for an answer.

There are many resources that can help guide a student

6.2 usa computing olympiad camp 34

to learn more both online and in text, but there is nothing

more important than practice. One can know everything

they need to about math and still fail to solve the easiest

USAMO problems without any practice. There is an ex-

tensive problem archive in AoPS, which offers an endless

number of math problems that a student can use for prac-

tice. Varsity Math Team also offers many opportunities to

improve mathematical skills, including lectures and prac-

tice contests. Even with these numerous resources, MOP

qualiﬁcation requires a combination of dedication, talent,

self-conﬁdence, and luck. Do not take improvement for

granted, regardless of how much effort you put in.

6.2 usa computing olympiad camp

By Franklyn Wang (USACO Camp 17–18)

The USA Computing Olympiad is the premier computer

science competition at the high school level. There are four

contests every year, in December, January, February, and

March, as well as four divisions, which are Bronze, Silver,

Gold, and Platinum. Each contest is three problems, and

you are given four hours to solve them. All students start

in the bronze division. The ways to get promoted to another

division are:

1. to do reasonably well and wait for the contest results

to come out or

2. solve all three questions and be promoted immedi-

ately, allowing you to start with a new clock on the

next contest immediately.

The students who perform the best on the March Platinum

test are typically invited to USACO Camp.

6.2 usa computing olympiad camp 35

At USACO camp (hosted at Clemson), you are either a

Guernsey (lower division, not eligible for IOI) or a Holstein

(upper division, eligible for IOI). The Guernseys receive lec-

tures and take some of the IOI selection contests (3prob-

lems / 4hours), whereas the Holsteins take all of the IOI

selection contests.

Students should be able to reach USACO Gold division

in a couple contests with only knowledge from their APCS

classes. Many of the lectures in Senior Computer Team

or standard dynamic programming coursework will help

you reach Platinum in less than a year after APCS. Note

that USACO camp is the easiest to make out all the camps

listed in this document. Most students can make camp with

less than two years of competitive programming experience,

while other camps (like MOP) require far more years of

involvement. In addition, the younger you are, the easier it

is to reach USACO camp; camp selections are not objective,

but rather age-adjusted. Most students from TJ who make

USACO camp do so in their sophomore year.

Starting early is key for USACO success. The majority

of students who do well in USACO contests take APCS

and start attending SCT in their freshman year. See the sec-

tion on skip tests for more information on skipping Foun-

dations.

Some good resources to prepare for the USACO compe-

titions include github.com/bqi343/USACO,codeforces.com,

and of course usaco.org. Some good benchmarks for US-

ACO skill:

6.3 usa biology olympiad camp 36

Codeforces Rating USACO

1200 Silver

1400 Gold

1600 Platinum

1950 Guernsey

2200 Holstein

6.3 usa biology olympiad camp

By Anish Karpurapu (USABO Semis 15–18)

Every year, TJ allows for students to take the USA Biol-

ogy Olympiad Open Exam during two 8th period blocks in

February. This exam is open to all students, and signups

occur a month earlier. It is a 50 minute, 50 question mul-

tiple choice exam with some questions having more than

one answer. The exam is split among seven topics, each of

which consist a speciﬁc portion of the test:

Topic Portion of Exam

Animal Anatomy/Physiology 25%

Cell Biology 20%

Genetics and Evolution 20%

Plant Anatomy/Physiology 15%

Ecology 10%

Ethology 5%

Biosystematics 5%

Although the exact percentages sometimes deviate, they

generally hold on the whole.

The top 10% of test-takers then advance to the second

round and are eligible to take the USA Biology Olympiad

Semiﬁnal Exam. Usually around 20–30 kids from TJ qualify

6.4 u.s.national chemistry olympiad camp 37

for this exam every year. This rigorous exam is 2hours long

and consists of three parts. Both Parts A and B consist of

60 multiple choice questions each, but Part B is much more

difﬁcult in that some questions can have multiple answers

and the questions involve a much deeper understanding of

biology. As a result, each question in Part B is worth two

points as opposed to the one point questions in Part A. Part

C varies greatly from year to year and can range from one

long essay question to numerous short answer questions.

The top 20 performers on the Semiﬁnal Exam are then in-

vited to the USABO National Finals where they undergo 10

days of instruction from professors, researchers, and other

experts in biology followed by two days of rigorous testing.

The practical exam is six hours and tests laboratory skills

while the theoretical exam is a three hour exam with multi-

ple choice questions in the format of Part B on the semiﬁnal

exam. The top scorers from these exams then go on to rep-

resent the USA at the International Biology Olympiad.

To study for these exams, it is highly recommended to

study Campbell Biology as majority of the content can be

traced back to this book. Although mastery over this book

should be enough to make the semiﬁnal round, ancillary

texts such as Biology of Plants by Peter Raven and Molecu-

lar Biology of the Cell by Bruce Alberts provide much more

depth and speciﬁcity.

6.4 u.s.national chemistry olympiad camp

By John Kim and Aaditya Singh (USNCO High Honors 17)

Though ofﬁcially the Chemistry Olympiad begins in March,

this competition is unique in that it restricts the number

of people who can qualify from each school. To this end,

6.4 u.s.national chemistry olympiad camp 38

TJ runs two multiple-choice qualifying tests for prospective

Chemistry Olympiad participants. The ﬁrst is held in Jan-

uary, with a focus on rapid problem solving for relatively

less complex questions. The second is held in February

and allows for an ample 90 minutes, but features more dif-

ﬁcult problems. Both exams vary in number of questions

from year to year, but the second exam can be expected to

be more questions, but generally easier to complete due to

less computational and more concept questions. The scores

from both exams are added with a 1/3weighting for the

former and 2/3for the latter, and only the top scorers are

permitted to take the Local exam. This is usually around

the top 17–20 scorers, depending on how many spots are

available for TJ students on a given year.

The Local exam is a 60 question, 110 minute multiple-

choice test. The majority of these questions can be prepared

for simply by paying attention in AP Chemistry; the level of

difﬁculty and depth of knowledge generally does not sur-

pass that of the TJ curriculum, though there are some excep-

tions. The local exam will include 1–2questions regarding

chemical trivia, laboratory techniques, and biochemistry,

which are not as emphasized in the AP curriculum. How-

ever, these questions are not difﬁcult and can be prepared

for by taking previous exams, as topics are often repeated.

Another key point is that questions come in the same for-

mats from year to year (i.e. question 60 is always biochem-

istry and the 55–59 are always organic chemistry). As a

result for trivia questions are past exams. In terms of text-

book, the AP textbook (Zumdahl) should sufﬁce, although

most experienced campers recommend Atkins Chemistry

for general chemistry review.

As before, the number of participants who advance from

the Local exam to the USNCO per school is restricted. Only

6.5 usa physics olympiad camp 39

the top two scorers from TJ on the Local exam will be al-

lowed to take the USNCO in April. As a result, it is essen-

tial to be extremely thorough and not make silly mistakes

on the local (practice makes perfect!). From TJ, the differ-

ence in qualiﬁers can often come down to a single question.

Also, the scores from the ﬁrst two rounds are not factored

in to picking the two students who take USNCO.

The USNCO exam consists of 3parts. Part I is a 60 ques-

tion, 90 minute multiple-choice test, very similar in style

to the Local exam (except the questions are much harder).

Part II is a free-response exam, consisting of 8problems to

be solved in 105 minutes. As with all previous exams, the

range of topics is unchanged; there are few entirely new

topics that must be learned. However, depth of knowledge

is important. //expand. Part III is the lab practical, which

TJ students are often the least prepared for. This consists of

two problems to be solved by designing and conducting an

experiment with given materials. The top 20 scorers of the

USNCO attend study camp.

6.5 usa physics olympiad camp

By Franklyn Wang (USAPhO Gold 17)

The USA Physics Olympiad begins in late January, with

the F=ma exam. The F=ma is a 75-minute, 25-question

multiple choice test. This exam is mostly mechanics, along

with some ﬂuid mechanics and wave mechanics questions,

which is ideal for students who just ﬁnished their ﬁrst semester

of AP Physics. The top 10% of scorers, which is usually

about 300 people, advance to the next round. The cutoff is

usually around 16–17 questions correct, but some years it

6.5 usa physics olympiad camp 40

has been as low as 14 questions, and sometimes as high as

19 questions.

The next round is the USA Physics Olympiad, which

covers many topics, including Thermodynamics, Relativ-

ity, Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, and occasionally

Quantum Mechanics. There is an A and a B section. The

A section is a ninety-minute test with four problems, each

worth twenty-ﬁve points. One will be on Mechanics, and

one will be on electricity and magnetism. The other two

are usually thermodynamics and relativity, but occasionally

there will be a curveball. The B section is a ninety-minute

test with two problems, each worth ﬁfty points. One is Me-

chanics, and one is on electricity and magnetism. These

questions are essay questions, and each is graded primarily

on the accuracy of the ideas, rather than the accuracy of the

answers.

Of these contestants, about one-twelfth receive gold medals,

one-sixth receive silver medals, and one-fourth receive bronze

medals. Another one-fourth receive honorable mention sta-

tus. Out of the gold medals (which number thirty to forty),

twenty of them attend the training camp. Multiple factors

are considered, like whether or not they have conﬂicting

summer camps (like RSI, USACO Camp, or MOP) and their

grade (11th graders are favored).

Finally, at the camp, students take an exam which mocks

the International Physics Olympiad: a theoretical and ex-

perimental exam, each ﬁve hours long. The theoretical por-

tion consists of three problems, which include all topics

from the USAPhO, as well as basic ﬂuid dynamics. The

experimental portion requires intimate familiarity with ex-

periments.

In order to study for these contests, we recommend tak-

ing AP Physics in 10th grade, teaching you the basics of

6.5 usa physics olympiad camp 41

mechanics and E&M. Ideally, you should be able to make

it to the USA Physics Olympiad in 10th grade and get a

medal. Then, the next summer you should spend time care-

fully reading the following three books:

1.Fundamentals of Physics, by Halliday, Resnick, and Walker

10th edition.

2.Electricity and Magnetism, by Morin and Purcell

3.Introduction to Classical Mechanics, by Morin

The second and third books are not as gentle as their titles

sounds. The exercises are very important to work through—

you may very well see the exact same problem on a competi-

tion! The 1st book is more of a catch-all, and would helpful

to read during 10th grade while taking AP Physics. Chap-

ters 1–13 are the core material for the F=ma, but material

from Chapters 14–17 is becoming more and more frequent,

so we recommend that you read those too. The E&M and

Thermodynamics Chapters are 18–33. There is some cur-

sory introduction to other ﬁelds in the later chapters, which

are however deﬁcient.

The second book is recommended for doing well in the

USA Physics Olympiad and beyond. Working through the

problems is incredibly essential, less so reading the content.

The third book is also recommended for doing well in the

USA Physics Olympiad. Other than chapters 9and 10, the

problems are very good and will be greatly useful in devel-

oping good intuition. Furthermore, the relativity chapters

11–14 are the best anywhere.

If you have time, you may also consider reading Ther-

modynamics by Fermi, since it provides a somewhat differ-

ent perspective. Finally, in terms of problems, obviously

you want to work through the past USA Physics Olympiad

6.6 other camps 42

problems, but there aren’t many. We recommend doing the

theoretical portions of the International Physics Olympiad

problems for this. Make sure to look up concepts men-

tioned in the solutions that you don’t know.

If you follow these instructions, you will deﬁnitely be

able to get a USA Physics Olympiad Gold Medal, and prob-

ably camp as well.

6.6 other camps

You will not ﬁnd signiﬁcant following for the other U.S.

Camps/International Olympiads at TJ. If you are interested

in one of the other Olympiads, know the following things:

•They are less prestigious than the above camps.

•You will have to study entirely independently of TJ.

Few in-school resources exist for the other camps.

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Whether no Olympiad camp exists in your ﬁeld, or you sim-

ply do not care for competitive math/programming/

biology/chemistry/physics, research projects are a great

way to show your depth of knowledge, problem-solving

ability, and long-term planning skills. Performing well on

the national or international stage of research competitions

is comparable to making some of the more difﬁcult camps.

The majority of research projects are conducted during

the summer. This is because it is difﬁcult to maintain your

schoolwork and a full-time research project concurrently. In

addition, most deadlines for competitions occur in the fall

or early winter, and some require research papers. While

it is certainly possible to write a research paper during the

school year, conducting actual research is better suited to

the summer months.

The ﬁrst section of this chapter covers lab research and

popular internship programs. The second section focuses

on prestigious research programs, and the third section cov-

ers independent research. Lastly, we take a look at popular

research competitions, which allow students to win prize

money and demonstrate the quality of their research on a

national or international stage.

7.1 working in a lab 44

There’s a lot of information in this chapter, and we barely

scratch the surface of research opportunities available to

you. The main takeaway is this: don’t waste your time. Find

a topic you love, whether its building a drone or writing ef-

ﬁcient algorithms or splicing genes, and work for a couple

hours each day (or more during the summer). It doesn’t

matter where you do your project, whether it’s in a lab or

your garage or a prestigious research program. Let your

work speak for itself. If you have the resources, embark on

the project.

That’s not to say there aren’t advantages of working in

a lab or at a research program. A lab will offer you a

more structured environment, multiple mentors, and pro-

fessional equipment. But your project topic will be at the

whims of your superiors, and you may end up working on

a small part of a much larger research endeavor instead of

your own project.

7.1 working in a lab

If you are interested in the biological or chemical sciences,

unfortunately, you will have to work in a lab to conduct re-

search. There is simply no other way for you to have the re-

sources and equipment to conduct signiﬁcant research. The

JUMP lab at TJ provides resources for underclassmen labo-

ratory resources, but, as mentioned earlier, conducting re-

search during the school year is exceedingly difﬁcult. It’s

possible, but improbable, for a JUMP lab project to be truly

successful. To be fair, it’s difﬁcult for any project to be suc-

cessful, but having a mentor with years of experience in

the ﬁeld is generally a good way to choose projects with a

higher likelihood of success.

7.1 working in a lab 45

We provide information on two popular lab programs:

NIH SIP and ASSIP. A third program, SEAP, is also popular

among TJ students, and provides the opportunity to work

at a local naval research lab. Please remember that your

experiences will differ greatly based on your particular ﬁeld

of interest, lab, and mentor.

Of course, there is always the option of emailing profes-

sors at a local university to see if they are willing to take on

a high school student. Find a professor who’s done work

in an area you are interested in, and keep the email short

and sweet. Since you’re from TJ, they will know you are

somewhat competent, but email quite a few professors re-

gardless, since the vast majority will turn you down.

The tried-and-true saying holds: It doesn’t matter where

you work, it matters what you do there. Keep in mind the

following points when deciding where to work:

•You are truly interested in the project you will be do-

ing over the summer.

•You have a signiﬁcant role in said project. You should

not be just a lab monkey or data collector.

•Commute time and transportation. A metro for an

hour is far worse than a car for half the time, espe-

cially when you have to do it twice a day, every day.

Last of all, if you plan on submitting research to a re-

search competition, think about how the ﬁnished project

would fare at competitions, and which parts you would be

allowed to present. You must be the primary researcher

of a project to present it at a competition, or have worked

on a large part of the project. If you have only worked on

a small part of a larger project, you can only present the

part of the project you worked on, which in general does

7.1 working in a lab 46

not work well. Saying “I pipetted solution for three months

while the rest of the team did the hard stuff" won’t get you

anywhere. A general rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t be

the ﬁrst author of the research paper, you can’t present the

project at a research competition.

In general, successful biology/chemistry research projects

don’t come from working in a lab with many others, but

rather specialized research programs (like RSI), working

one-on-one with a mentor in a lab, or independent research

after school. That’s not to say that working in a large lab or

a part of a large project won’t give you valuable experience,

it just won’t give you a project that succeeds in research

competitions. Again, all of the advice in this paragraph

only applies if you wish to submit your research. In general,

it is recommended, since research competitions can lead to

prestigious and large awards, but submitting is certainly

not required. Most students do not submit their summer

work to research competitions.

7.1.1NIH Summer Internship Program

The NIH Summer Internship Program (SIP) is a popular

place to perform biology-related research during the sum-

mer. The application process begins early (November–December),

and it is up to you to email researchers and ask them if

they have a position available (best results come from email-

ing those who have previously taken high school students).

Note that the long commute (>1hour on the metro, no park-

ing for HS students) and low pay ($12/hour) are downsides

to this program. Some students even work unpaid if the lab

they desire does not have a paid position.

7.1 working in a lab 47

Most students end up performing wet lab research un-

der a mentor, usually a post-doc or staff scientist in the lab,

rather than directly under the Principal Investigator. The

ﬁrst week of the internship is primarily composed of liter-

ature review and reading past papers produced by the lab

to gain a solid background on the basis of the research per-

formed in the lab. For the next few weeks, students conduct

research, usually performing numerous trials of an experi-

ment after their mentor demonstrates and explains the pro-

cedure. A large portion of the internship then consists of

performing these procedures, which can include qRT-PCR,

gel electrophoresis, PCR, western blotting, and so on. The

internship culminates in a poster day where interns present

their research to PIs, staff scientists, NIH employees, and

other students.

If a student’s work is part of a larger project by their

mentor, which is later published, the student may get their

name on the paper. This is a great accomplishment, es-

pecially if the paper is published in a prestigious journal.

However, whether a student’s name gets on a paper or not

is largely up to the individual mentor. Some mentors are

nice and slap interns’ names on their papers, others will

only do so when interns have signiﬁcant contributions to

the research. The vast majority of high school interns at the

NIH do not get their name on a publication.

If you are interested in computational biology (as op-

posed to wet lab research), working at the NIH may not

be helpful at all. Although the NIH has a supercomputer

(which high school students can access with a bit of pa-

perwork), TJ’s computer resources will generally sufﬁce for

most computational biology projects. In addition, most

datasets are public, so unless your mentor has access to pri-

vate datasets, you will be working with publicly available

7.1 working in a lab 48

data (and thus you will have to beat every previous algo-

rithm in order to have novel research). However, the NIH

name lends some prestige, and in general your work will

be interesting. As a rule of thumb, if your sole computer

science interest is in computational biology, then the NIH

may be for you. However, if you are interested in computer

science, and computational biology is just an interesting ap-

plication of CS, then the NIH is most likely not for you.

The Application Process

The application process is fairly long. Information for the

traditional summer internship program is available here.

Normally it begins in December. You need two teacher rec-

ommendations, and you will need to budget enough time

for you to ﬁll out their forms and for them to write the

recommendation.

However, if all you do is ﬁll out the application, you

won’t get anywhere. No one will ﬁnd you. Instead, you

have to email people at the NIH who did work in the ﬁeld

you are interested in. Look through the PDF brochure of the

previous years’ Summer Poster days (2017 available here)

to see which investigators took high school students in the

ﬁeld you are interested in.

Eventually, if your interest is in a niche, you will run out

of people that took high school students and you should

email researchers who may not have taken high school stu-

dents or who work in tangential ﬁelds. Keep in mind that

your greatest chance of success is always with a researcher

who has taken high school students previously.

You won’t hear back from 70% of the researchers you

email. They’re busy people. Roughly 20% will tell you

“Sorry, I’m not looking for high school students", or “Sorry,

7.1 working in a lab 49

my slots are ﬁlled this year". If you are lucky, perhaps 10%

will respond positively to you and you might have an inter-

view over Skype/Hangouts (or even in person). Even after

an interview, you may not get the job (tighter funding dur-

ing a Republican administration is an oft-cited reason for

lack of available intern positions). In general, it is recom-

mended to email 30–50 people.

After you are accepted, there are numerous forms to ﬁll

out (this is the government, after all). Once you get to the

NIH, make sure you ﬁll out the metro reimbursement form

as soon as possible, or you will be paying hundreds over

the course of the summer just to commute to work.

7.1.2ASSIP

By Eric Lin (ASSIP 17)

The Aspiring Scientists Summer Institute Program (AS-

SIP) is a 7.5-week-long summer internship held at George

Mason University (predominantly at the Fairfax campus).

Stretching from the last week of June to the ﬁrst week of Au-

gust, student interns work directly under the mentorship of

George Mason professors and post-doctoral and doctorate

researchers. The disciplines range from computer science

and chemistry to the physical and life sciences; there are 19

different ﬁelds of study, each with multiple possible profes-

sors as mentors. Thus, there is a plethora of possibilities.

However, the wide range and massive size of the pro-

gram are a double-edged sword. Since there are so many

mentors, their teaching style and quality covers a wide range

as well. Rest assured, all mentors are professors (you won’t

be paired up with a doctoral student), so they will have

decent experience with guiding college students through

7.1 working in a lab 50

research. Unfortunately, some may view ASSIP interns as

simply interns and not full-ﬂedged researchers, and will

give you simple projects to work on. These may be fun

professors to hang around and work for, but let’s be real—

the reason you’re doing summer research isn’t to primarily

have a fun time. It’s to truly experience research—perhaps

for the ﬁrst time—and the end goal should be something

tangible—a paper and poster at the very least, preferably

submitted and accepted at research conferences and jour-

nals.

The mandatory end product of all ASSIP research projects

is a standard research poster. At the end of the ﬁrst or sec-

ond week of August, there will be a showcase of every AS-

SIP project on stage at George Mason. However, as stated

before, this is the minimum requirement. Thousands of

high school students “conduct research" every year. The

vast majority of this research ends up on a poster. Sure,

a poster looks impressive at ﬁrst glance; it may look far

prettier than a bland research paper. Yet, in my opinion, a

solidly and professionally written research paper is a must

for all legitimate research. Not only does it present your

work in a professional manner, having a research paper

ready to go is extremely useful for your future—you can

upload it to colleges as supplemental material, submit it

to competitions such as STS or Davidson, and even cite it

during job or college interviews. I highly encourage you

to show initiative and ask your professor in the ﬁrst few

weeks about your intent on writing a legitimate, profes-

sional research paper. This will indicate to your mentor

that you don’t want to be like most high school interns and

piggyback on a graduate student’s project, or run a small,

insigniﬁcant experiment, but instead that you truly want to

conduct research and contribute to current research efforts.

7.1 working in a lab 51

The ASSIP Application Process

Regarding the actual ASSIP application, it is not very long

nor time consuming to complete. If you have completed ap-

plications for RSI, SEAP, or similar research programs, the

ASSIP application should be a breeze. First, the entire appli-

cation is on the website (here) pretty much all year-round,

and the application almost never changes from one year to

the next. Moreover, the deadline is in the ﬁrst week of

February, which is after most other applications. However,

I would highly recommend starting the application process

much earlier. As with NIH, contacting the researchers—

in this case, GMU professors—is of utmost importance. It

is trivial to search up the emails of professors (all have

GMU-associated web pages) and it doesn’t take long to

send emails to 10 or 15 professors. I suggest emailing ei-

ther right before or after winter break.

The point of reaching out through emails is to give you

a huge advantage in the application process; the professors

are the ones that select and admit interns. Furthermore,

Stage 2of the application process is an interview with the

professors, and if you have already corresponded through

emails, it will be much less stressful than talking to a com-

plete stranger. Think about it this way—if you contact 15

professors and 5like you and would like to take you on

as a student, you have in effect ﬂipped the system. Now,

you get to choose which lab to go to for the summer (this is

similar to the college application process for top students;

in the end they’re the ones choosing colleges, not the other

way around).

7.2 research programs 52

7.2 research programs

Most research programs and camps are useless; you are

better off working on your own. Any research camp where

you have to pay any money (except, perhaps travel costs) is,

in general, not recommended. Perhaps the one exception

is the Simons summer research program, which is a worse

version of RSI, and costs $2,000. Research programs at uni-

versities which you may wish to apply to in the future are

useless—they do not meaningfully increase your overall ad-

mission chances. However, a couple research programs are

actually useful and prestigious.

7.2.1Research Science Institute

By Franklyn Wang (RSI 17)

The Research Science Institute, held at MIT, is the most

prestigious high school research program. It annually ad-

mits ﬁfty domestic students and thirty international stu-

dents to do research with mentors in the Boston Area, hail-

ing from Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Boston University, as

well as companies. Students stay at Masseh Hall, at MIT, for

six weeks. The program is entirely expense-paid.

The Application Process

Let’s be real, knowing about RSI is meaningless unless you

can get in. From what we understand, there are two pri-

mary routes to getting in.

1. The ﬁrst route is the research route. This route likely

requires you to make ISEF as a sophomore or become

published in a journal as a coauthor. Both of these

7.2 research programs 53

generally require ﬁnding a good internship the sum-

mer before your sophomore year (although indepen-

dent projects can certainly ﬁnd success in these com-

petitions). The research route is generally the route

taken by most people who attend. However, a word

of caution: if you take this route, you must make it

clear in your application that you think you would

get a lot out of RSI, and that you would rather go to

RSI than continue your winning project.

2. The second route is the competition route. This gener-

ally requires one to qualify for a camp (or just barely

miss it). You also need a strong recommendation let-

ter from a teacher at TJ.

RSI Itself

During the ﬁrst week, students are treated to classes from

professors, intended to broaden their perspectives. The

next four weeks are mentorship, where students work to-

gether with their mentors on their projects. The last week

is “Hell Week", when students write their papers and pre-

sentations. Sprinkled throughout are lectures from distin-

guished professors, like Pardis Sabeti (Broad Institute Pro-

fessor) and Eric Maskin (Nobel Laureate in Economics)

Another advantage of RSI is that the adults who direct it

advocate for students to be accepted to the colleges of their

choice. The results show. All but one domestic student

from RSI 2016 who applied to MIT was accepted.

7.2 research programs 54

7.2.2PRIMES-USA

By Joshua Lee (PRIMES-USA 17)

PRIMES is an opportunity for high school juniors to ex-

perience research in math, computer science or computa-

tional biology. Students partner up with mentors, who can

be graduate students, lecturers, professors, or other profes-

sionals on the topic. The program is hosted by MIT, and ap-

plications are open until mid-November to early-December

to high school juniors (or younger for those who intend

to graduate early). The computer science programs are

only available to Boston students, while the math program

(PRIMES-USA) is available nationwide.

About 20–30 students nationally are selected annually for

the math program, although this number has grown in re-

cent years. A student is paired up with a mentor in mid-

January soon after they are notiﬁed of being selected for

the program, and the ﬁrst few weeks are meant for read-

ing, where the student familiarizes themselves with the

subject. They start doing the actual research shortly after-

wards, usually meeting with their mentor at least once or

twice a week, although this number differs greatly from

student to student. There is a convention in May, where all

PRIMES students meet at MIT and present on their prob-

lem, as well as their progress and where they’re headed in

the future. The PRIMES program continues yearlong, al-

though students are given great leniency in their schedules

from this point on, so that it doesn’t conﬂict with any pos-

sible summer plans.

Merely being accepted to PRIMES is an indication of ex-

cellence, and it is regarded highly when applying to college,

particularly for MIT. However, PRIMES doesn’t guarantee

7.3 independent research 55

you a ticket to MIT; please don’t apply to the program just

to raise your chances to get into MIT. PRIMES also offers

students exposure to math beyond high school, or an alter-

native to competition math, which may help guide the stu-

dent’s choice of career. Lastly, most PRIMES students sub-

mit their research projects to competitions such as Siemens,

and often win prizes (as did Franklyn Wang, a contributor

to this book).

7.3 independent research

Most labs will be reluctant to hire freshmen or sophomores,

and research programs are geared towards juniors and se-

niors. For example, PRIMES takes place during your junior

year, and RSI the summer after. Thus, your initial research

will generally be independent. Independent research offers

the freedom to choose your topic, but you will often be con-

strained by resources.

Some ﬁelds of research are more accessible than others

because they require fewer resources. Computer science

research is especially accessible as a TJ student due to the

free high-performance computing offered at TJ. The GPU

and CPU clusters can be accessed via SSH during the school

year and summer. In addition, several cloud computing

platforms offer free credits. Google Cloud Platform gives

a free $300 in credit to anyone with a credit card (the card

is not billed after the credits run out), and Amazon AWS

gives $150 with a .edu email (however, you must be 18, and

they do ask for veriﬁcation).

The Github student pack is available to anyone (use your

tjhsst.edu email), which gives you free private repos while

7.3 independent research 56

you are a student. The Github student pack gives additional

AWS credit.

Any computer science or computational simulation project

can certainly be conducted from your own home. Any algo-

rithmic research, mathematics research, or theoretical work

which requires little resources can be done independently

(of course, theoretical work is very difﬁcult to conduct with-

out a mentor through a research program like PRIMES-

USA). In addition, if you have the engineering supplies, an

engineering project can be conducted from your own home

(know your equipment and budget restrictions). In general,

any research which does not require large, expensive equipment

can be done in your own home, independently.

However, it should be noted that no matter your ﬁeld,

without a research partner to keep you in check, it is very

easy to waste the summer away unless you are extremely

motivated or have previous project experience. Therefore,

we recommend meeting with a research partner in person

for a set time every day during the months of your research

project.

You should enjoy whatever project you pick, and the re-

sults (awards, prizes, recognition, etc.) will follow. Yes, it’s

true: some topics are far more likely to win awards than oth-

ers. Projects involving disease diagnosis or water quality or

computational biology generally lend themselves better to

science fairs and competitions than engineering projects or

pure physics or math. But you shouldn’t choose your topic

based on whether it will win awards, since these research

competitions have a high degree of randomness. Projects

that win a science fair with hundreds of competitors often

walk away with nothing at the next. Be creative, be unique,

and do something you enjoy, or you’ll give up when you

inevitably run into difﬁculties. And whether it’s in a lab or

7.4 competing with your project 57

your garage or after school or during 8th period, there are

plenty of resources available to you, and you can always ask

a teacher or lab director if you need equipment purchased

or simply a second opinion.

When you embark on an independent project, let your

teachers know, and ask them for advice. If you are trying

to make an algorithm more efﬁcient, talk to your computer

science teacher. They may have experience in the ﬁeld, or

know someone knowledgeable, or at the very least, encour-

age and critique your idea. If you plan on submitting your

work to a competition, you’ll need a teacher sponsor any-

way (someone to sign off on forms). And when you in-

evitably need a recommendation a year later, now you have

someone who is familiar with your work and ambitions

outside of their classroom.

7.4 competing with your project

Three major research competitions exist. Each of these com-

petitions comes with substantial prizes, and a high place in

any of them is a great achievement. However, all competi-

tions have a certain degree of randomness. Some students

will fare admirably in one competition, only to fail miser-

ably in another with the same project.

7.4.1Siemens Competition

Deadline: Late September

By Franklyn Wang (Siemens 2nd Place, 17)

7.4 competing with your project 58

Nota Bene: The Siemens Competition ended in 2017,

and will not be held in upcoming years.

The Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technol-

ogy is a high school research competition. There are both

Individual and Team categories. The Individual category is

open only to seniors, whereas the Team category is avail-

able to anyone.

The submission deadline is in mid- to late-September. It

requires turning in a report (which has meticulous guide-

lines, including citing code, double spacing, and a page

limit of 18 pages), obtaining approval from the principal,

and having mentors ﬁll out forms.

In mid-October, the Semiﬁnalists are announced. Gener-

ally speaking, if you’ve formatted your work correctly, you

should be named Semiﬁnalist. Semiﬁnalists are the top 150

team projects and the top 150 individual projects. Then, the

very next day, the Regional Finalists are announced. These

are ﬁve projects in both the team and the individual cate-

gory for each of six regions, so they number sixty projects

total. The Regional Finals occur just in time for the college

early application deadline.

The Regional Finalist stage comes with a $1,000 prize, as

well as numerous goodies. You must make a poster and

slides for your project. These are each due in late October.

Then in November, each of the regional ﬁnalists will make

a presentation (via Cisco WebEx) to judges from the spon-

sor university in their region. In order to ensure lack of

bias, the judges are required to be from different universi-

ties than the mentor of the research project. The Regionals

happen at different times, some in early November, some

in late November. The winners of each regional advance

7.4 competing with your project 59

to Nationals, and recieve an additional $2,000 on top of the

$1,000 prize.

The National Finals are in the very beginning of Decem-

ber. Students are taken to a hotel in Washington D.C., where

they enjoy ﬁve days of socializing. Judges look at the poster,

the presentations, and the paper. However, the poster is not

presented to the judges, as the judges view the poster in a

private poster session. The prize structure was changed in

2017, so the prize given to 3rd–6th place in both categories

is $25,000, the prize given to 2nd place is $50,000, and the

prize given to 1st place is $100,000.

7.4.2Intel International Science & Engineering Fair (ISEF)

Forms due: Early January

Reaching ISEF requires succeeding at ISEF-afﬁliated school

and regional fairs. Forms are due in early January for TJ’s

science fair (or much earlier if your project involves human

subjects or sensitive data). The TJ Science Fair is held in late

January or early February, and all judges are TJ parents.

ISEF (and the afﬁliated regional and school fairs) differ

from other research competitions in that you are judged

relative to other projects in your category. There are ap-

proximately 20 categories, about half of which are biology-

related (Computational Biology, Biochemistry, Animal Sci-

ences, etc.). Projects can be completed individually or in a

team (up to 3people per team).

At the TJ science fair, judges do not necessarily have sig-

niﬁcant expertise in your research ﬁeld, so good projects

often slip through the cracks and do not win their category.

Only projects that win their category are eligible for the

7.4 competing with your project 60

Fairfax County Regional science fair. NB: the rules change

every year, this was not true in 2018.

However, if your project was awarded Siemens Competi-

tion Semiﬁnalist or Regeneron STS Semiﬁnalist, you are au-

tomatically eligible for the Regional science fair. (Note that

you still have to participate in the TJ science fair.) Thus, the

best way to ensure your project will be judged by qualiﬁed

individuals at the regional science fair is to submit your

project to the Siemens competition. Of course, this assumes

you have ﬁnished the vast majority of your research by the

September deadline.

At the Regional science fair (held in March each year),

there are approximately 400 projects. For the ﬁrst half of

judging day, judges with expertise in your category judge

all projects in your category. The judges convene, and around

noon, thirty “Grand Prize Nominee" projects are called out,

and the students of the other projects leave. Note that some

categories may not have a Grand Prize Nominee, while

other categories will have multiple. After lunch, only thirty

projects remain, and a series of Grand Prize judges view the

thirty remaining projects. The top 9projects of the 30 Grand

Prize Nominees move on to Intel ISEF in May. All category

winners (which may or may not be Grand Prize Nominees)

and Grand Prize Nominees move on to the State science fair.

If you qualify for Intel ISEF (top 9), then you do not have

to attend the State science fair. Note that generally, only

2–3of the top 9projects are team projects, and the rest are

individual. From TJ, grand prize winners are generally lim-

ited to two individuals and one team. If your project wins

your category or “ﬁrst place" (about 75 projects), but is not

in the top 9, you can still qualify for ISEF through the State

science fair. However, only three to ﬁve projects out of the

200 at the State science fair qualify for ISEF.

7.4 competing with your project 61

Intel ISEF occurs in mid-May each year, and is a week-

long expense-paid event held in Los Angeles, Phoenix, or

Pittsburgh, depending on the year. Most of the week is

spent setting up posters, meeting fellow competitors, and

attending various speeches, events, and parties. Wednes-

day is judging day, where you will present your project to

16 judges (10 minutes per judge). Unlike previous science

fairs, the judges at ISEF will only allow roughly 30 seconds

for you to go over your project before interrupting your

speech with questions. It is up to you to answer their ques-

tions (and follow-up questions) efﬁciently, and steer the

conversation towards strong points you wish to highlight.

There are more than sixteen 10 minute blocks throughout

the day; you will have resting periods after some judging

sessions.

After all judging sessions, there is one ﬁnal session where

no one has any judges scheduled. In this ﬁnal session,

judges circle back to projects of interest. In general, the

more judges that visit your project during this last session,

the greater your award, but this is not always true. It has

varied from year to year.

Throughout science fair, there are a second set of judges

called organizational judges. These judges are sent by vari-

ous sponsors and decide who receives corporate cash awards.

At ISEF, these cash awards are generally $1,000 to $2,000—

students often win more from corporations than from their

category placement. Whenever you get a judge, you should

quickly discern whether they are organizational or not. Of-

ten, organizational judges have special badges. When deal-

ing with an organizational judge, be careful to not go too

technical and make sure to emphasize your research’s appli-

cations. It is very advantageous to tie in your applications

to the company or group they represent.

7.4 competing with your project 62

7.4.3Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS)

Deadline: Mid-November

Unlike the other competitions, STS is only open to se-

niors. STS is the most prestigious research competition.

Projects must be completed individually (working with a

mentor is acceptable, and the majority do), and can be

started anytime during high school.

Note that the purpose of STS is not to ﬁnd the best re-

search project, but rather to ﬁnd “scientiﬁc talent". This

means that STS judges a person for their scientiﬁc think-

ing and achievement, as well as the project’s merits. Thus,

the STS application is intensive, requiring numerous 300–

500 word essays describing the origin and inspiration of the

project, as well as your view about current scientiﬁc prob-

lems and developments. Applicants list all research and

awards they have achieved during the previous four years.

Additionally, a recommendation from a research mentor (if

you have one), and a teacher are required. This process

is comparable to, but far more rigorous than, the college

application process.

Approximately 1800 projects are submitted to STS. 300

projects are awarded Semiﬁnalist honors in early January.

Semiﬁnalist selection is based entirely on research papers.

Of those, 40 projects are awarded Finalist honors roughly

two weeks later, based on previous research, essays, recom-

mendations, and other application information. If you wish

to become a Finalist (minimum $25,000 in prize money),

spend signiﬁcant time on your essays, and have a previous

research award (ISEF Finalist, Siemens Regional/National

Finalist, Davidson, etc.) or extensive previous research ex-

perience. Finalists spend a week in Washington D.C. to de-

7.4 competing with your project 63

termine the top 10 projects. There, ﬁnalists not only present

their project, but also answer a series of questions regarding

scientiﬁc basics from any discipline, as well as work out so-

lutions to hypothetical scenarios. Thus, after the announce-

ment of ﬁnalists in mid-January, many ﬁnalists spend a few

weeks before March reading AP review books for biology,

chemistry, and physics, to brush up on basic facts they may

have forgotten. Winners are decided in early March, and

are based on ﬁnalists’ projects and how well they answer

their questions.

In terms of the selection process, your paper is ranked

within your category against all the other papers. The top

300 (Semiﬁnalists) are determined by taking the top xper-

centage of papers from each category. The top 100 projects

are decided in the same way. The judges then look at es-

says and and other submission material to whittle the top

100 down to the 40 ﬁnalists.

7.4.4Davidson Fellows Scholarships

Deadline: Mid-February

This competition is open to both humanities and science

research. Like STS, it involves far more than just a research

project, as both recommendations and multiple essays are

required. It takes a decent amount of time, so plan on work-

ing ahead of time. However, the prizes are fairly large

($10,000+ for 20 students). Note that Davidson Scholar-

ships are also available to students in humanities ﬁelds. All

projects must be individual, so most students from TJ apply

their senior year, but the application is open to anyone in

high school. Results come out in July. At TJ, Davidson is

7.4 competing with your project 64

the least popular research competition, and only a handful

of students apply each year.

In terms of the application itself, you should contact your

recommenders ahead of time. The recommendation isn’t

really about you, but rather your project, so make sure to

give them a thorough description of your project. The rec-

ommender form is online so you can look at it before giving

them the information. Besides that, make sure your paper

is very, very thorough. In general, Davidson prefers theo-

retical research so make sure to give rigorous proofs and

explanations of your work.

7.4.5Google Science Fair

Submission Window: September to December

Prior to 2016, Google Science Fair was a global science

competition where students between the ages of 13 and 18

submitted projects online between February and May. Stu-

dents could compete as teams of up to 3or as individu-

als, and had to submit a summary of their work, a short

video/presentation, and a research paper. One hundred

Regional Finalists were announced in July. Sixteen Global

Finalists were announced in August, and were invited to

a ceremony in California where the 5winners (including a

grand prize winner) were announced in September. Win-

ners were split evenly between projects from the two age

categories, 13–15 and 16–18. The Grand Prize Winner re-

ceived $50,000; the other winners received various smaller

awards.

Google Science Fair did not occur in 2017 or 2018. A re-

vamped website now appears at googlesciencefair.com,

and offers little information other than the submission win-

7.4 competing with your project 65

dow: September to December 2018. The rules, format, pro-

cedures, and prizes of the new competition may be different

than previous Google Science Fairs. Nevertheless, this com-

petition may serve as a valuable opportunity for students

now that the Siemens Competition has been discontinued.

RESEARCH VS. CAMPS

Now that you’ve read through many of the research op-

portunities outlined in the previous chapter, as well as the

Olympiad camp avenues in Chapter 6, you may be wonder-

ing which path to pursue. Should I work towards a camp

or conduct a research project?

This is a difﬁcult question to answer. In an ideal world,

you should do both, but as time is limited and you will have

other activities (homework, sports), it is very difﬁcult to be

successful in both research and camps. Students who suc-

ceed in both research and camps waste little time and are

extraordinarily motivated. In addition, they tend to pursue

projects in the ﬁeld of their camp.

Generally speaking, Olympiad camps provide a more

sureﬁre way of demonstrating your knowledge. If you put

in the time, study the books, and do the practice problems

consistently, your performance in qualifying exams will re-

ﬂect your hard work. Of course, nothing is a guarantee.

In every subject, an exam might focus on a particular area

you neglected, or you might just be unlucky and forget a

formula or a fact or make an arithmetic error. But none of

these unplanned errors even begin to compare to the ran-

domness in research competitions.

research vs.camps 67

Research competitions contain a great deal of random-

ness. In lower levels of the science fair, parent judging is

horrendous. Organizers have even said themselves that par-

ent judging is poor. At the regional and state level, judges

are slightly better, seeing through towering poster boards

and unnecessary electronics, but they still make mistakes.

Consider it from their perspective. A single judge will never

view every project in a fair. A judge won’t even view every

project in a category. And how does one compare research

in one ﬁeld to another? When you view one project that is

clearly better than another, it’s easy to tell them apart, but

at the upper echelons of research competitions, projects all

seem similarly complex and competitors make equally bold

claims. By and large, the projects that win a fair are in the

top 5–10%, but they are not guaranteed to be the best.

For competitions requiring a full research paper, judging

is slightly better, but still contains randomness. At least

you can fully ﬂesh out your ideas, and judges (presumably)

read through your full methodology, results and conclusion.

But even then, when it comes to STS, reading through the

top 300 projects won’t help you pick out the forty best—

which is why judges rely on recommendations, essays, and

past research experience.

At the end of the day, Olympiad camps are certainly

more work to reach; expect a minimum of two years of

work to reach any particular camp (save MOP, which is far

more difﬁcult, since students are exposed to competition

math far earlier than they are to biology or chemistry or

physics). But if you truly enjoy the subject, if you really

have a passion for the ﬁeld, the work will seem enjoyable,

and the knowledge gained will beneﬁt you greatly in sub-

sequent years, whether you make camp or not. Plus, there

are always other competitions where you can win prizes

research vs.camps 68

and gain recognition (like the Toronto Exam for biology

students or Chem 13 for chemists), and preparing for camp

will certainly prepare you for these contests.

On the other hand, the majority of research projects (even

winning projects) take less than a year to complete. In ad-

dition, most of the work is concentrated in the summer

months, when students are free from their other commit-

ments. But working longer or putting more effort into your

project doesn’t improve your odds of success. Instead, re-

search success relies on a broad set of skills. It requires

an interesting idea with broad implications, the skills and

resources to complete the problem, and eloquent writing

and speaking. Camps require narrower but deeper knowl-

edge, making it nearly impossible for a student to transition

from research to camps, but certainly possible to move from

camps to research.

Younger students often prefer to pursue camps. Since al-

most no one has any signiﬁcant biology, chemistry, physics,

or computer science knowledge before 9th grade, freshmen

start off on even footing (except competition math, of course).

Starting early is key for camp success. In addition, younger

students often don’t have the broader skills necessary to

succeed in research competitions, from scientiﬁc writing

and poster presenting to basic computer science (many projects

have small algorithmic parts). But by junior year, if you

haven’t made signiﬁcant headway into your ﬁeld, it will be

extraordinarily difﬁcult to qualify for a camp, so older stu-

dents tend to prefer research. Nevertheless, these students’

camp efforts are not for naught. Even if you never qualify

for a camp, the knowledge you gain from studying greatly

expands the possible research projects you have the skills

to pursue.

research vs.camps 69

We leave you with the following advice. If you prefer

honing your knowledge in a particular ﬁeld, diving far

deeper than what TJ will teach you, and want to be one of

the best high school students in the nation in your ﬁeld, pur-

sue a camp. However, if you would much rather apply your

knowledge from coursework and extra readings, if you pre-

fer to learn on the go and think of interesting ideas and

execute them, then pursue a research project. And when-

ever possible, do both.

STANDARDIZED EXAMS

Standardized exams should be fairly trivial. We recom-

mend taking the SAT during ﬁrst semester junior year. You

should not need to take the SAT more than twice. Any

score ≥1540 does not need to be retaken. Any score <800

on the SAT math section is abysmal. SAT math is highly

trivial. The SAT essay can also easily be done by following

the rubric. You should achieve an SAT essay score ≥20. The

SAT essay format (persuasive writing) is also very similar

to that taught by most English 11 teachers at the beginning

of junior year.

Only two (2) SAT II exams need to be taken. Unless you

wish to attend Georgetown, no additional SAT II exams

should be taken. SAT Math 2must be one of your two

exams. It is highly trivial and should be taken sometime

near the conclusion of the school year (preferably June), as

you will have less coursework at this time. There are two

SAT II Biology exams, and either one should be taken near

the conclusion of AP Biology. The SAT II Chemistry exam

is also trivial, and should be taken near the end of Chem-

istry I or AP Chemistry. Neither exam will require anything

more than minimal preparation, as the AP courses cover the

SAT II material. However, the Physics SAT II covers mate-

rial outside the AP Physics curriculum, so you will need to

standardized exams 71

study for the exam. Thus, it is recommended that you take

the SAT II Biology or Chemistry if you have taken AP Biol-

ogy or Chemistry. You should achieve an 800 on all SAT II

exams you take. A 780/790 won’t hurt you, but an 800 is

more than doable.

It goes without saying that you do not need any test

preparation outside of taking a few practice tests during

the weeks before an exam. You can ﬁnd dozens of practice

test books (Barron’s, Princeton Review, Kaplan) at your lo-

cal library. Any outside services are frivolous, useless, and

expensive wastes of time.

RESUME-BOOSTING ACTIVITIES TO AVOID

Many students at TJ perform resume-boosting; they engage

in activities solely for the purpose of inﬂating their achieve-

ments when applying to college. Resume-boosting includes,

but is not limited to:

•Founding a non-proﬁt

•Founding a start-up

•Paying for science fair projects (This often takes the

form of research camps that cost thousands of dollars)

•Disingenuous volunteer work

•Giving a TEDx talk

•Internships for the sake of work experience

•Creating a club

•National Honor Society

•Foreign Language Honor Society (membership; ofﬁ-

cer positions have tasks)

•Exaggerating hackathon projects (presenting 24-hour

work as multi-week affairs)

resume-boosting activities to avoid 73

Of course, not every non-proﬁt or start-up is founded

for the resume-boost, however, the vast majority of non-

proﬁt organizations and start-ups founded by high school

students go nowhere, and you would be better off joining a

legitimate organization rather than founding your own.

We have already discussed the difﬁculties in founding

a “legit" club in Chapter 3. Creating a “legit" club is not

resume-boosting, but founding a club that accomplishes

nothing and teaches little while sounding important on pa-

per is certainly resume-boosting. If a club name is exces-

sively long or sounds complicated, chances are it was founded

for the resume-boost and lives on as a useless organization.

Unfortunately, resume-boosting, done thoroughly, actu-

ally works. Enough nonproﬁts and conference talks can

get you into Harvard, nevertheless, you should not take the

path of resume-boosting.

Why, if resume-boosting can get me into Harvard, should

I not pursue it? Simply put, resume-boosting only works

when you pick up news coverage (this does not mean a lo-

cal paper, like the Fairfax Times, but rather a national pub-

lication or technology/science website). Once you have con-

vinced a signiﬁcant publication that your start-up/invention/

non-proﬁt is a legitimate enterprise, others will follow and

fairly soon articles about you and your project will cover

the ﬁrst page of Google when anyone searches your name.

This is, of course, rare for a TJ student. It is extraordi-

narily difﬁcult to convince a legitimate publication to run

a story on a high school “wiz-kid" without connections. If

successful, however, it will be your ticket to Harvard/Stanford.

If you cannot convince a news outlet to run a story on your

project, all your effort creating a non-proﬁt/start-up will go

to waste. At this point, colleges pretty much assume all of

resume-boosting activities to avoid 74

the activities listed above are BS unless proven otherwise.

And thus, 95% of resume-boosting fails.

Resume-boosting is one reason why Olympiad camps are

signiﬁcant accomplishments. You cannot boost your way

to a camp, you must achieve the knowledge and skill your-

self. Research competitions can be muddied by projects that

were paid for (usually through expensive research camps),

but paid projects for the most part fail in the early stages of

research competitions.

APPLYING TO COLLEGE

Applying to college from TJ is a competitive process. Nu-

merous students apply to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale,

and especially MIT early and regular. First, we will cover

non-TJ-speciﬁc terminology.

11.1 terminology

•Early: Refers to applications due November 1st (or ear-

lier). Generally, students apply to 1or 2schools early.

Results generally come out the week before December

15th.

•Regular: Refers to applications due January 1st (or

around that time). If students do not gain admission

to their top choice during the early application round,

they apply to the rest of their schools in the regular

round.

•Early Action: Applying to a school early action means

you can apply to other schools early. Prestigious and

popular early action schools include MIT and Caltech.

•Restrictive Early Action: You can only apply to other

public universities early. Prestigious and popular REA

11.2 early action &early decision 76

schools include Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and Prince-

ton.

•Early Decision: You can apply to other schools early,

but if you gain admission to an Early Decision school,

you must attend the school. Prestigious and popu-

lar ED schools include Cornell, Duke, Columbia, and

Carnegie Mellon.

•Deferral: An early application that is not accepted but

not rejected. Deferred applications are reconsidered

in the regular round.

•Waitlist: Students who aren’t quite strong enough for

regular admission are offered a spot on a waitlist. Some

waitlisted students will be offered admission in May.

The percentage of waitlisted students offered admis-

sion vary greatly by college, but are generally small

(<10%) for elite colleges.

•Yield Rate: The percentage of students who, once ad-

mitted, decide to matriculate and attend that particu-

lar university. Schools usually want to have a higher

yield rate, as it comes with prestige and gives them

more control in ﬁlling their class (less risk of under or

overﬁlling).

11.2 early action &early decision

Applying Early Decision raises your chances of acceptance,

since fewer people are willing to commit to a school in

November. In addition, Early Decision schools tend to not

be the top institutions, rather, they aim to lock up students

who might otherwise get into a more prestigious university,

11.2 early action &early decision 77

thus increasing yield rates. For example, Harvard, Yale,

and Princeton are Restrictive Early Action, because these

schools already have high yield rates, whereas the other

ﬁve Ivies all have Early Decision programs.

Some schools will have extremely high deferral rates (up

to 80%) for early applicants. These schools are generally

prestigious institutions, such as Princeton, Harvard, and

MIT. Notably, Stanford has a low deferral rate, resulting in

a much higher percentage of deferred applicants accepted

in the regular round (15%). Some students may choose to

send a “letter of continued interest" to these colleges, how-

ever, some colleges, like MIT, have a speciﬁc “February Up-

date Form” for you to let colleges know of any achieve-

ments since November. Nevertheless, due to high deferral

rates, the vast majority of deferred applicants do not receive

admission.

From TJ, roughly 12–16 students make MIT, about 8make

Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and 5–8make Stanford, al-

though this varies from year to year. This does not mean

that 41–48 students make these colleges, since the “top 5–

10” students will inevitably gain admission to 2–3of these

colleges and thus be double-counted in these ﬁgures. For

the early round, expect that no more than 8will make

MIT, and no more than 4for the other colleges listed above.

Please keep in mind that these ﬁgures are all based on re-

cent data (within the last 3years), but could easily change

in the next few years. It is also worth noting that several

of these students are recruited for athletics, and thus have

near automatic admission.

11.3 in-state vs.out-of-state 78

11.3 in-state vs.out-of-state

A single university can have different acceptance rates for

in-state vs. out-of-state applicants, or for its different schools.

For example, the UVA acceptance rate for in-state students

was 41.3%, as opposed to a 23.7% acceptance rate for out-

of-state applicants. This beneﬁts TJ students greatly; UVA

admits the vast majority of students with ≥4.3GPA post-

junior year, along with students who have lower GPAs but

signiﬁcant extracurriculars.

For most universities, the school of engineering tends

to have a lower acceptance rate than the college of arts

and sciences, however, the difference in acceptance rates

between them vary extensively from university to univer-

sity. Carnegie Mellon, for example, has an extremely strong

computer science program, so its school of computer sci-

ence (SCS) has a 5–6% acceptance rate, less than a quarter

of its other schools.

Not only do universities have vastly different acceptance

rates for in-state and out-of-state students, the tuition for

in-state universities can be as low as a quarter of the out-

of-state tuition. This is a major reason why so many TJ

students go to UVA, even though they may have been ac-

cepted to a better institution. For them, its not worth the

extra $150,000 for a slightly better education.

11.4 applying to top universities

If you wish to attend a top university (without resume-

boosting), in general, you should have at least one major

research or camp accomplishment. Note that you don’t

necessarily need to attend a camp, for example, qualifying

11.4 applying to top universities 79

for USAMO many times is a very signiﬁcant accomplish-

ment. Some examples of “major" research/camp accom-

plishments are, in no particular order of prestige or difﬁ-

culty:

•STS Finalist

•ISEF Finalist

•Siemens National Finalist

•Siemens Regional Finalist (2×)

•Attending RSI

•Participating in PRIMES-USA

•Davidson Fellow

•Attending MOP, USAPhO, USABO, or USNCO

•Attending USACO twice

•Qualifying for an international olympiad

•Making USAMO 2 −3×

This is by no means a complete list. In addition, some of these

accomplishments are far more difﬁcult than others (attend-

ing an international olympiad is far more prestigious than

just attending ISEF or making USAMO a few times, for ex-

ample), but they all have one thing in common: any one of

these accomplishments, along with decent grades, excellent

essays, good recommendations, and a few smaller achieve-

ments, can get you into the college of your choice. Obvi-

ously, the less prestigious your main accomplishment, the

better your essays/recommendations have to be.

11.4 applying to top universities 80

In addition, the more recent your main accomplishment,

the more impressive. This is partially because it is more dif-

ﬁcult to make camps as a junior, but also because it shows

growth and a positive trend. Reaching ISEF freshman year

but failing to make it past the regional science fair in sopho-

more and junior year tells colleges your initial research suc-

cess was merely a ﬂuke. For this reason, if you have a

particularly successful sophomore year, you may want to

consider applying to colleges as a junior.

If you have multiple accomplishments and projects, your

essays will write themselves. Just think about an interest-

ing experience you had when solving a problem in your re-

search, or at a research competition, or preparing for/attending

a camp, and you will ﬁnd that your essay will naturally

highlight and show some of your research or scientiﬁc abil-

ity. (Obviously, don’t do this for all your essays.) When

admissions ofﬁcers read about your research, and then note

that you’ve won awards for it, they view the project as legit-

imate, rather than something you’ve made up or exagger-

ated. This is why it is important to submit your research to

competitions, or to win awards. You generally don’t write

about winning a competition or award, but rather a snap-

shot of an experience along the way.

Some universities favor camps (MIT, for example, is known

for taking campers), while others favor research (Stanford

accepted 10/10 RSI Early applicants into their Class of 2022).

Simply having a high GPA, a leadership position, and a sin-

gle varsity sport is not enough to ensure acceptance to the

most prestigious institutions, although it is certainly possi-

ble with excellent essays and a bit of luck.

On the other hand, attending an international olympiad

(IMO, IChO, IPhO, IOI, IBO), is a sureﬁre way to guarantee

admission. STS Finalists are also near-guarantees for al-

11.4 applying to top universities 81

most all colleges. And a nationally-ranked athlete (from TJ,

these athletes are few and far between, and generally swim-

mers, tennis players, or rowers) will certainly be recruited

to one or multiple prestigious institutions. However, given

you are reading this guide, you probably don’t ﬁt that last

category. A well-rounded student, however, one who suc-

ceeds as both an athlete and an olympiad camper/ﬁnalist

or researcher, is perhaps even rarer.

11.4.1College-speciﬁc Information

As we mentioned earlier, MIT is known for taking campers,

while Stanford favors research. The vast majority of campers

apply to (and are accepted by) MIT early. MIT is also

known to be the most ‘resume-based’ college—they often

overlook mediocre essays and recommendations for MOP-

pers and other multi-year campers. Other colleges also ex-

hibit preferences. CMU SCS is known to like cybersecurity

students (CTF competitors, especially top PicoCTF ﬁnish-

ers) and math students (USAMO qualiﬁers, etc.). Harvard

tends to accept ‘famous students’, that is, students that have

articles or news stories written about them. That’s not to

say that Harvard only accepts famous students, or MIT only

accepts campers, just that if you are famous or a camper,

you have a very high chance of getting into Harvard and

MIT, respectively.

You may have noticed we haven’t mentioned GPA, grades,

or classes much in this chapter—that’s because they truly

don’t matter, as long as you have mostly A’s and A-’s. Prince-

ton seems to be the only Ivy school that cares—most of their

acceptances have very high GPAs (≥4.5end of junior year).

11.5 final thoughts 82

11.4.2The Main Takeaway

The main takeaway is this: barring any rare circumstances

(such as being from an extremely under-represented minor-

ity), a STEM student who has no major research or camp

accomplishment will have a difﬁcult time getting into Har-

vard/Stanford/MIT. Princeton, Yale, and other top-tier col-

leges are a bit more lenient (since there aren’t that many

people with major research or camp accomplishments, and

most go to H/S/M), but you must have excellent essays

and a somewhat unique experience to distinguish yourself

from the horde of other TJ students applying. Again, this

advice is for STEM students; those with humanities accom-

plishments will have a different experience, since there are a

whole slew of writing/art/ﬁne arts competitions and achieve-

ments which colleges weight differently.

Finally, it’s worth noting that there is still randomness

involved. Students who have fewer accomplishments than

others may gain admission to more prestigious universities.

Nothing is a guarantee. Rest assured, at the end of the day,

the vast majority of TJ students are happy and content with

the college they end up at. College admission is not an end,

but rather a beginning. What matters most of all is what

you do at your university, and every college has research

and work opportunities.

11.5 final thoughts

At the end of the day, it is impossible to perform well in

research or reach an olympiad camp if your only motivation

is college. You should enjoy the ﬁeld and your work. Only

11.5 final thoughts 83

then will you be willing and able to put in the time and

work necessary.

FACTORS YOU CAN’T CONTROL

Inevitably, your admission or rejection to college is partially

dependent on factors outside of your control. These in-

clude:

•Legacy

•Family income

•Race

•Gender

•First in family to go to college

•Residence in a state in the middle of nowhere

In addition, your GPA is dependent on your course grades,

and some teachers are harder than others. You have little

control over your teacher selection, but for the most part

over the course of four years you will have a mix of “easy"

and “hard" teachers.

It is possible to partially control your teachers through

course selection. Obviously, selecting APUSH vs. Dumb

HUM or Singleton Lang vs. Teamed will change your teach-

ers. However, you have some control in other courses. For

example, signing up for Multivariable calculus and AMT

factors you can’t control 85

will nearly guarantee you Dr. Osborne for both. Selecting

courses with too little interest for even a single class can

guarantee you one of your alternate courses (and you do

not need prerequisites to put down a course as an alter-

nate).

CONCLUSION

Your experiences at TJ may differ from the book. TJ poli-

cies will change over time (generally for the worse), as will

Olympiad camp, research competition, and college admis-

sion procedures. Nevertheless, we leave you with the fol-

lowing advice:

1. Find an academic subject you love! Possible subjects

include mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, robotics,

rocketry, computer science, economics, geosystems,

and many more!

2. Delve deeper into the subject. Attend the respective

TJHSST club (or make one, if there is no club!). Go

online and read more about the subject. Sign up for

free online courses or buy books or other material. If

you don’t ﬁnd learning about the subject interesting, you

chose the wrong subject!

3. Find other areas of interests (academic or nonacademic)

and try to improve at those as well. Again, if you ﬁnd

yourself not enjoying something, stop doing it.

4. Sign up for a sport at TJ (that you are somewhat de-

cent at) and strive to improve. Exercise helps with re-

conclusion 87

lieving stress, which may become an issue (especially

junior year).

5. Be respectful in class, pay attention, and stay on top

of your homework (try not to procrastinate, and use a

planner!). Try to participate in class as well.

6. Give back to the community in some way during your

years at TJ, whether it be through club leadership or

volunteer work. Disingenuous volunteer work (see

resume-boosting chapter) is discouraged.

7. (Optional) Find a friend, and do some sort of research

project in the academic area that you are interested in.

Even though you can enter this project into a competi-

tion, the goal here is for you to learn about research in

your ﬁeld; in the long run, it doesn’t matter whether

or not you actually win the competition.

8. (Optional) Find an internship in an area you are inter-

ested in. Otherwise, the internship will be pointless

in the long run. The point is for you to learn how

working in your area of interest will feel like.

9. Don’t fall into the resume-boosting trap! Do not apply

to internships just for the sake of having an internship,

do not do a research project just for the sake of having

a research project, and do not do anything just for the

sake of putting it on your college application! Only

do things you enjoy.

10. Put effort into your college essays, and try to ﬁnish

as much as you can in the summer. Have multiple

people (friends, family, or teachers) read your essays

and give you feedback. Rewrite your essays many

times!

conclusion 88

11. Know that college admissions results do not deﬁne

you or change who you are in any way. They are a

poor indicator of intelligence and ability. Most impor-

tantly, remember that it doesn’t matter where you go;

what matters is what you do there.

ABOUT

If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, contact

one of the ﬁve authors. For some sections of the book, the

author or contributor is explicitly stated. If your question

concerns one of these sections, contact the listed author or

contributor ﬁrst.

This book was created over the course of six months,

from December 2017 to June 2018. The vast majority of

the book was written during the ﬁrst and last weeks of this

time frame.

This book was written using the L

EX document process-

ing system. The book is formatted by a modiﬁed version of

the classicthesis package. The font is Palatino.

This guide is version 1.0, last updated on June 30,2018.

The most updated version of this guide can always be found

at nikhilsardana.github.io/guide.pdf.

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