High School Research and College Admissions: What the Experts Say
High school research has become one of the most talked-about pieces of a strong college application, and one of the most misunderstood. To cut through the noise, Scholar Launch hosted its first panel event in Irvine, bringing together three people who see research from very different vantage points: a former Duke medical school professor, a Former Admissions Officer at the University of Chicago, and a working PhD researcher who studies sharks.
Across the evening they answered the questions families ask most. What does research actually mean before college? How do you start one? What separates real work from box-checking? And how should students use AI without letting it think for them?
Here are the highlights.
Meet the Panelists
Dr. Robin Bachelder spent over 17 years as an Associate Professor at Duke University School of Medicine, where she led a translational breast cancer research laboratory spanning virology, cancer biology, and machine learning. She has mentored students who have gone on to become physicians, clinical scientists, and academic professors, and now serves as a faculty advisor at Scholar Launch.
Wesley Mills is a Former Senior Admissions Officer at the University of Chicago, where he evaluated more than 1,500 applications and served on the admissions committee. He has since worked with students as young as 13 on essay writing, extracurricular strategy, and building college profiles, and brings that insider perspective to his work at Scholar Launch.
Zach Merson is a PhD researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, where he studies the feeding behaviors and migration patterns of sharks using environmental DNA. At Scholar Launch, he has served as a research mentor, junior program lead, and teaching assistant, guiding students through every stage of the research process.
What Does Research Mean for High School Students?
Zach opened by stripping the word down to its core. Research, at every level and across every discipline, is about discovering something new or looking at existing data in a new way. What changes from high school to PhD is scope and resources, not purpose. High school students rarely have mass spectrometers or satellite tags. They do have public datasets, simple experiments, and observational studies they can run at home or in their own community.
Wesley offered the reframe that takes the pressure off. Admissions officers are not reading a student's paper to grade the conclusion. They are noticing that a student found a question worth asking and did their best to investigate it.
"I say this not to encourage lazy research, but to give you permission to put yourself out there, to stake a claim to an idea. As long as you can defend it, that's what universities are looking at."
Robin reminded the room that research is a broad word, and that opportunities often come down to who you reach out to. When she was at Duke, two high school students simply asked if they could shadow her lab. They did, and it strengthened their applications. The common thread across all three panelists was passion. As Robin put it, when you talk to a genuinely curious student, they exude it, and admissions officers can spot it just as easily.
How to Start a Research Project in High School
When a student arrives with no research experience, Wesley starts with their interests, both academic and personal. The goal is to fold a student's hobbies into their academic work so the two reinforce each other. An athlete drawn to medicine might land on sports medicine, then kinesiology, then nutrition. That integration does two things at once: it frees up time for busy students, and it builds a profile that actually looks like the person behind it.
"Just having a major of interest won't set you apart. What sets you apart is how you've integrated your life experiences with your academic ones."
For younger or undecided students, Zach starts with a question: what problems in the world matter to you? He often points students toward science magazines written for the public, like National Geographic or Science, rather than jargon-heavy journals, just to see what sparks something.
His own path proves the point. Growing up in Massachusetts, he never saw sharks at the beach. Then, around 15 years ago, they started appearing constantly. He dug into why, and found a conservation success story decades in the making. That single curiosity led him to marine science. He also made a point worth repeating: no exploration is wasted. Learning what you are not interested in is just as valuable as finding what you are.
What Research Mentorship Looks Like at Scholar Launch
Robin described her first job as a mentor as breaking down the imagined wall between student and expert. Students arrive feeling they cannot measure up to someone with a PhD. Her answer is a casual first conversation, no academics required, just two curious people getting to know each other.
From there, the structure is deliberate. The faculty mentor drives research direction and introduces content. The teaching assistant works one-on-one to help the student clear specific hurdles: reading a scientific paper, running and interpreting statistics, learning to write scientifically. Zach was clear about the boundary.
"The TA's role is not to do the work for the student. It's to help the student overcome the challenges in their way."
Across roughly 12 to 16 sessions, most of the real growth happens between meetings, when students work through problems on their own. Every student finishes with a formal presentation of their work, which Robin noted does something that lasts well beyond the application: it builds confidence.
Do Letters of Recommendation and Publications Matter?
Recommendation letters were one of the most common questions of the night. Robin was candid about the difference a student's effort makes. For someone who was disengaged, she writes two generic paragraphs, and any admissions officer can read between the lines. For a student who respects her time and shows genuine passion, she spends hours on a detailed three-page letter that admissions officers take seriously. Her shorthand for what earns it: respect people's time, and care about what you're doing.
On publication, Zach was reassuring. What makes a paper publishable at the high school level has less to do with the topic or the results than with the time, creativity, and motivation a student pours into it. The technical skills can all be taught. Motivation is the one ingredient a student has to bring. He has guided students from a blank page to publication, and is confident most motivated students can get there.
How Does Research Affect College Applications?
Drawing on more than 1,500 applications, Wesley explained what makes research land: how well it fits the rest of a student's profile. Work done only because it might help admissions tends to read as disjointed, a checklist of right moves without the motivation behind them.
His metaphor stuck. One twig snaps easily. Ten activities that build on one another form a bundle that an admissions officer cannot break.
"The admissions officer trying to find reasons not to admit you won't find one. It's a strong bundle of sticks you present to them."
As research grows more common on applications, does that raise the bar? Wesley's view is that research belongs in any high-achieving student's profile, but it can take many forms. Even a regular blog of short, thoughtful posts counts. What it signals to top universities is that you ask questions, put your ideas out there, and will be a generative presence in the classroom.
Should High Schoolers Use AI for Research and Essays?
All three panelists agreed AI is here, and all three urged caution about how students use it.
Robin, who describes herself as old school, has been learning to use AI to free up time for the work that matters most, like drafting figures or formatting references. What she will not do is let it write her paper, because the hallucinations and errors are real and easy to miss. Her worry is that students will quietly trade away their reading comprehension and writing ability.
Zach offered a test for any task: if you would do it yourself without AI, AI probably should not do it either. His analogy was a horse on a farm. The horse can plow the field, but you would never let it decide what to plant or manage the budget. AI is good for syntax, formatting citations, and similar mechanical work. It should never replace thinking, writing, or creativity.
Wesley was blunt about essays. AI writing is immediately obvious to an admissions officer, for the same reason a parent's writing always was: high school students, even the strongest ones, do not write like adults steeped in professional jargon.
"They know exactly who wrote it with AI. Do not write your essays with AI."
Where AI does help, he noted, is early brainstorming. Asking a tool how two interests might combine can surface an idea worth chasing, as long as the student takes it and makes it their own.
How to Start Your Research Project: Advice for the Next Two Weeks
The panel closed with practical advice for anyone ready to begin.
Read as much as you can, Zach urged, and do not get discouraged when the first academic paper gives you a headache. That is normal, and every article you work through deepens your sense of the field.
Start from curiosity. Find a problem in the world you care about, and let your reading raise more questions than it answers. That iterative process is the work.
And come prepared, Robin added, but not finished. Show up to your Scholar Launch mentor and TA with a few ideas to refine together rather than a plan you feel you had to perfect alone.
"Don't think you need to do it by yourself. That's what we're here for."
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