High school research competitions - redpill me

No.10866901 ViewReplyOriginalReport
Isn't it really obvious that these kids are getting their work done by mentors/parents/etc?

I guess if you're heavily involved in math problem solving contests and you do related research in combinatorics or you're an experienced programmer doing an AI project those are feasible. What you need here is a lot of creativity and not necessarily domain knowledge gained from years in labs as a grad student

What basis does some high school kid have to work on a biochem/medical research problem, run experiments, cite papers from the 90's, etc? It seems quite plausible for fraudulent work to be done by an overbearing parent with a science background. Thoughts?