I had a lot of friends in high school who did the Intel Talent Search (since renamed or reorganized) via partnering with a lab in the nearby university. Most o

I had a lot of friends in high school who did the Intel Talent Search (since renamed or reorganized) via partnering with a lab in the nearby university. Most of them got some kind of publication and authorship out of it. None of it was fake, and I don't think this is uncommon for applications to top schools.