How common is this at all? Asking because I went to one of the fairly high tier public research schools in the US (Georgia Tech), have tons of friends who got published during their undergrad (almost did myself too, but priorities changed, and I quit research in that lab before we got to the point of draft submissions), and not a single one of those friends had academia-affiliated parents. None of them were donors to the school either.

I don't doubt that those scenarios you describe happen, but I strongly doubt it happens at top research schools in any capacity that would be noticeable or affect anything. In fact, professors running the labs that I've encountered couldn't care any less about who you are, and way more about what you can bring to the table in terms of getting things done and published.

Undergrad researchers are typically shielded from all of the bullshit that goes on behind the scenes because they aren’t in lab 40+ hours a week. I know, personally, of 5 separate 16-18 year old kids that have been a part of academic labs.

They have all been professors kids or friends of professors kids

Quick edit: I’ll also add that PIs project one face to prospective students and “outreach” students, like a high schooler is. Additionally, adding a high schooler to your lab gets you points for scientific outreach, which can help with certain grant submissions.

Before DEI almost all our interns were kids of employees. Now they are almost all DEI candidates, either way is always some special group. I assume the same is true in university

If you think professors care much about DEI when it comes to hiring students for their research labs, I have a bridge to sell you. Professors don't seem to have DEI as one of the primary metrics tied to their performance and financial compensation. They might have some, but I've never seen it, though I've definitely seen those metrics being a significant factor in performance review for some org directors in the industry.

My (and that of everyone I know) experience with undergrad research was more like just taking a class with a professor, checking out their research papers, finding their research topics interesting enough, having a chat with the professor after the class or sending an email asking if their lab is looking for research assistants, meeting up with the professor to have an informal conversation to decide whether this is a good fit and whether it is a potential publication opportunity, and that was pretty much it.

Caveat to this: only talking about STEM fields, as I have zero idea how sociology/psychology/etc. labs hire researchers or even operate at all.

> Undergrad researchers are typically shielded from all of the bullshit that goes on behind the scenes because they aren’t in lab 40+ hours a week.

Sure, but the original comment was about the difficulty of getting published without being a child of an academic or an influentional person. Getting published as a 16-18 years old kid is insanely rare and unachievable for most, and I would agree that for that you might want to rely on hookups from parents. Mostly because it is so uncommon and rare, heavy majority of labs won't even be able to provide the necessary support for a high schooler to be productive in their research (exceptions apply ofc). However, getting published as an undergrad is very doable for most academically-minded students, and there are plenty of opportunities to do so at most research-centric colleges.

As for grad school, guess what's the most helpful item on the CV that professors and grad admission committees look at when deciding whether give an acceptance offer to a prospective grad student? It is their previous undergrad research and publication experience.