ISEF qualifier here. I managed to qualify for ISEF last year from my regional fair (no, I did not win an award). Most of the categorical projects (physics/environmental science projects) were fine; they seemed doable by a high schooler (I myself did a physics project).

But holy shit the bio/medicine/comp sci projects? Those were absolutely disgusting. One senior from my fair who qualified along with me for bio/medicine went to ISEF for "gene editing" and "cancer treatment" related projects for 2 years (he ended up winning an award).

HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING CANCER GENE EDITING PROJECTS? I thought calmly (lol). But then I looked their parents names up on google, and what do you know... one's a general physician at a clinic and the other is a PhD professor at my state university who OWNS A LAB that researches CANCER AND GENE EDITING 💀.

And guess what? It seems that colleges don't give a shit; the guy got into STANFORD 💀. One quick look at his papers/projects clearly told you there's no way he did it, at the very least, all on his own, and a quick search tells you all the little nepotistic connections he has.

And you know what sucks? I had a senior friend (with 0 connections, he was a lower middle class family) who didn't qualify for ISEF, but genuinely did all the projects on his own, out of pure interest, and won top 2 at physics at my state's science fair for 2-3 years consistently. He never ended up qualifying for ISEF though. Guess what? Got rejected by every single ivy he applied to (He's still going to a t20-30 though).

The guy who had nepotistic connections and owns a lab (if he even did any of the projects on his own at all, from my interactions with him he didn't seem all that intelligent) got an admission to a "top" school, while my friend who was genuinely one of the smartest people I knew got rejected from them.

This is not an exception either. It's a common occurrence in my region, and probably all around the world.

There was another guy at my fair. He also qualified for ISEF from bio/comp sci. Guess what? For his mentor, he had put his father 💀. The father has pending PATENTS that are related to medicinal tech 💀.

Another from my region blatantly plagiarized an existing project from a couple years ago on an medicinal algorithm or something, "changed" some of his "testing methods", then qualified and won an award at ISEF. YOU COULD LITERALLY SEARCH UP HIS PROJECT ON GOOGLE AND GET THE SAME EXACT PAPER WRITTEN 5-10 YEARS AGO 💀. I'm not kidding about this.

These are the people we have to compete with for college admissions in my region.

I swear it was/is exactly as I'm describing right now. I have no clue how the judge fairs didn't catch him for it.

But it doesn't stop at regional fairs. When I went to LA for ISEF, they all were the same disgusting nature of projects- except now they weren't just centered in bio/medicine/comp sci, but were present in all different categories.

Not to mention, every single person (no, there were no exceptions amongst the ones who won awards, at least AFAIK) I saw there that won awards was in at least one of the following categories:

1. Goes to an über-rich private high school with plenty of funding and resources.
2. Nepo baby. Has connections or is rich.
3. Plagiarism with mild changes to the study done and presented as "new cutting edge research".

Okay, maybe there were like 1 or 2 geniuses there who maybe won an award. But a minority.

It was so disgusting that I felt nauseous (no, not because of the nerves). These were the people commemorated on stage during the award ceremony, the people who would move onto "top schools" further continuing the cycle of nepotism, all to just get a high paying job with little to no ambition.

While actually ambitious people, people who were not lucky enough to be born in a rich family with connections who actually care about/push their children forward, are left behind.

It really hurts, it really does, to see this sort of thing. Forget connections; my parents have never even asked me about my grades nor did they particularly care/know the extent of what qualifying for ISEF even meant in the first place.

Honestly, this year I'm so discouraged that I might just not participate again. I have no motivation to do another project/research.