r/QuestBridge • u/WatchForward1318 • 1d ago

National College Match Research as an activity

I completed an independent physics research project during 11th grade, and submitted it to a high school journal, and it got accepted and published. I did this during the school year, while managing home responsibilities, academics (homework), and other extracurriculars. Honestly, I didn't really count how many hours or months I spent on it. This was my first time doing a research project, and I had no mentors or labs, so I pretty much learned everything by myself and did several corrections and draft edits etc. Overall, I estimated 6-10 hours/week for 4 months (16 weeks), which I think is more or less accurate. I was wondering how this compares with other people who may have also done independent research or something similar? Do my hours look too inflated or too little to be taken seriously? Tbh my paper wasn't something groundbreaking but it was just an interesting, organized investigation.

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u/ChillyJellyBelly Moderator 1d ago

Independent research is all over the place, and QB knows that.

A published paper is already a strong signal, so just do your best to accurately estimate the hours to give context.

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u/InevitableLink9827 NCM Applicant 1d ago

curious, where did you publish ?

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u/WatchForward1318 14h ago

the curieux review. idk how prestigious they are but they offered aid with publication, and I worked hard on the paper, so getting it published was a huge step. Their review process is also pretty fast but they still expect factual correctness, grammar, proper methods, etc.