College tracks

Grade 9 — start one project

You are on one track. The project lasts four years. This year you start it and keep a log. The log is the start of the file you will send. Do not open a second project.

Every week, do four things inside that project:

1. Compute a quantity with units, state the uncertainty, and say what decision it supports.
2. Write one claim, two reasons, and one real objection. About one page.
3. Read one short original — a figure and its caption, a statute section, a schematic, or a specimen — and write what it says, separate from a summary.
4. Add to the log.

Finish these rungs on the First Principles ladder. Each one has a gate. The rung is done only when the gate is done.

1. Instructions a machine could follow
2. Loops and branches
3. Variables and state
4. Function as a black box
5. Balancing equations
6. The coordinate plane
7. Python: syntax and types
8. Python: files and automation

School courses beside the project: algebra and geometry. Add a lab science if the department you expect to name will examine it.

PhD on-ramp

Write a question and this sentence: “I would drop this question if I saw ___.” Start a log. Another person must be able to carry out the next observation from the log without asking what you meant. The field may stay unnamed this year.

Done when that sentence and a followable method are both in the log.

This week. Write one question you can test with a count, for example whether more of one insect appear at your site after rain. Add the sentence “I would drop this question if three visits showed no difference I could count.” Write the method so a stranger can do the next visit: where, when, what to count, and where to write the number. The field can stay unnamed.

Log for this week. Date. Question. Drop-sentence. Where. When. What to count. Where to write the number. Field (may be blank). Who could do the next visit from this page.

Grade 11 — let someone break it

Same project. Someone outside your household tries to break the result. Their paragraph stays in the log. That person is the one who can write the letter.

Before you register for grade 12, write three lines from the course list your desired college publishes: courses you will have finished, courses still missing, and the term you will take each missing one. Add a missing course around the project. Do not drop this track’s mathematics, lab line, or memo to make room for an elective.

Name a department this year. From here, finish the mathematics that department will examine. The rung list below is for the other tracks.

Every week, inside that project:

1. Use the standard of proof the named department uses on the method already in the log.
2. Write a timed page a stranger in that field could grade. Answer the other side in the text.
3. Cite one paper, dataset, or specification that department would recognize. A textbook restatement does not carry the claim.
4. Put the outside reader's paragraph in the log before you answer it.

School courses beside the project: the mathematics the named department will examine.

PhD on-ramp

Name the department that would examine the method already in the log. Do not switch methods to fit a department you like better. If two departments could claim the method, pick the one that would grade the work you have, not the one with the more famous name. Ask someone in that field, or as close as you can get, to read the method.

Done when they have written a paragraph on how the result could be wrong for a reason you missed, and that paragraph is in the log.

This week. Read the method in the log. Write, at the top, the name of the department that would examine that method. Send the method, not the conclusion, to one person in that field or as close as you can get. When their paragraph arrives, paste it under the method. Do not answer it until it is in the log.

Log for this week. Date. Department name. Who received the method. Their paragraph pasted under the method before any answer.

Grade 12 — an artifact a stranger can grade

Same project. The artifact is what a stranger can grade. One reviewer has watched the work long enough to describe it.

Every week, until that note is the one you send:

1. Use the standard of proof the named department will examine, on the method already in the log.
2. Keep the claim in a piece a reviewer in that department can check against the sources.
3. Let a primary source carry the claim. A summary does not.
4. Write in the log what would change the conclusion.

Finish the rung phase the named department will examine.

School courses beside the project: the sequence the named department expects you to have started.

PhD on-ramp

Write the note a graduate reader can finish in twenty minutes: question, method, result, limitation, and what would change the conclusion. The reader from grade 11 is the person who can write about the work.

Done when the note contains all five parts and the limitation is a way the result could be false.

This week. Cut the note so a reader can finish it in twenty minutes. Five headings, in this order: question, method, result, limitation, what would change the conclusion. The limitation has to be a way the result could be false. Send it to the person who wrote the grade 11 paragraph.

Log for this week. Date. Five headings present. Limitation that could make the result false. Sent to the grade 11 reader (name).

What you send

The application is this project. By the time you apply, the file has these parts:

1. The grade 12 artifact for your track.
2. The log, showing the same question across four years and what changed.
3. A letter from the person outside your household who tried to break the work.
4. The course record this lesson names: calculus and the lab sequence where your track requires them. Also take the courses your desired college publishes as required. If one of those crowds out the project, add it around the project. Do not drop the lab line or the mathematics line to make room for an elective.
5. The undergraduate admission test that college requires, on the calendar that college publishes. If your track has a mathematics line, take the test after that mathematics is underway. This is not the medical-school, law-school, or doctoral test, and it is not a substitute for the project.
6. An essay that states the claim, the best objection, and what the project changed. It is not a list of activities.

What you enroll in

The first year of college keeps the next gate open. Add a course only when it serves that gate.

Once a week, in the hardest course you are in, take one problem the exam could ask. Close the notes. Write the diagram, the equation, or the rule before you look up the solution. Record whether you finished it and where the solution disagreed. That page is the log. A course you only follow in lecture is not done.

PhD on-ramp. The first-year sequence the named department requires for your method. In the first term, take the twenty-minute note to a research meeting. Do not add a second project to look broader.

Through the degree, to the gate

The first year is the start. The gate opens only if the later courses are the same kind of work.

PhD on-ramp. Years one and two are the department’s sequence for the method. By the junior year the note has a result the department recognizes, and the grade 11 reader, or someone in the department who has replaced them, has watched the work long enough to write about it. Doctoral admission is that note plus those courses. A second project does not help.