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by Hannah Dreyfus

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One Thursday afternoon in December, a father and two of his estranged children boarded a flight from Salt Lake City to Texas, beginning an effort to repair their fractured relationship.

A family court official had ordered them to attend a reunification camp, Turning Points for Families Texas, to repair damage that the judge said the boys’ mother had inflicted by alienating them from their father.

The following morning, at the vacation rental where their therapy sessions were to be held, the counselor made an unusual request.

Jordan, the boys’ father, was asked to play a recording he’d made of a 2019 domestic dispute with his ex-wife, Hollie, that led to her arrest and their divorce. (ProPublica is using only the first names of adult family members to avoid identifying the children who are minors.) Jordan would later tell the court that he never intended for his sons to hear the sounds of their mother screaming during their fight. “I never even wanted the kids to know it existed,” he said of the recording.

But the Turning Points counselor, Loretta Maase, insisted. The camp claims to remedy parental alienation, a disputed psychological theory in which one parent — in this case Hollie — is accused of brainwashing a child to turn them against the other parent. They needed to hear the truth about their mother so that “the healing can begin,” Maase said of the children.

What unfolded after the recording was played caused the four-day treatment session to spiral out of control.

The younger son, then 12, covered his head with a blanket, shutting out the sounds, while his older brother became violent. When the boys refused to leave their bedroom to take part in therapy, Maase ordered the door removed. Their bedding, shower items, food and clothing were also removed, according to family members who participated in the intervention.

“They would use the blankets to hide underneath so they didn’t have to come out,” Jordan’s new wife would later testify.

The court-ordered intervention failed to reconcile the boys with their father, and beginning in January a judge convened a four-day hearing to understand why. The testimony that followed offered a rare glimpse into Turning Points’ operations and methods, as well as how family courts handle complicated family dynamics.

Custody disputes are often fraught, and courts and child welfare workers have the difficult job of sorting through allegations and counter allegations to decide what’s best for the children. Programs like Turning Points, in effect, allow overburdened family court judges to outsource some of that difficult decision-making: An order to participate effectively transfers to the person running the camp the power to decide if and when a parent can contact their child, regardless of the court’s previous custody rulings. This transfer of power generally lasts from the time the court order is issued until the camp director determines the treatment has been successful.

Despite family courts’ frequent use of Turning Points for Families, little is publicly known about the program, which was founded by New York-based social worker Linda Gottlieb, who describes the intervention as a “therapeutic vacation.”

But its treatments are controversial and frequently fall short of addressing the underlying causes of broken family relationships, experts told ProPublica.

This case is the latest example of Turning Points and programs like it triggering pushback over their methods.

ProPublica reported this year on another Utah case involving siblings who barricaded themselves in their bedroom to avoid being sent to the same Texas program. A judge subsequently backed down on an order mandating that they return to their father’s custody, and the children left their room. In March, a California appellate court reversed a lower court order sending two children to a similar program, saying the judge had not adequately understood or vetted the program before ordering the children to attend.

In April, Colorado lawmakers approved a bill to prohibit state courts from using reunification programs like Turning Points; lawmakers in California and Montana are considering similar bills. And a recent United Nations Human Rights Council special report recommended that court-ordered reunification camps be prohibited.

Maase, who runs Turning Points for Families Texas, told ProPublica she was not able to comment on specific cases. Questions that ProPublica sent to her were included in a motion filed last month by Jordan, asking the judge to restrain the news organization’s reporting on the case. The judge denied the request, stating the court did not have jurisdiction over ProPublica.

Jordan filed a motion against ProPublica requesting the court seal the custody case involving his boys and their mother. (Obtained by ProPublica)

Jordan declined to speak with ProPublica, citing his children’s need for privacy. “They’ve gone through a lot,” he said.

In an interview, Hollie said she faces “an impossible choice: see my kids again or subject them to more of this.”

Maase has blamed Hollie — “the alienating parent,” Maase called her — for the treatment’s failure, according to court documents. She did not comply with “Turning Points Protocols,” specifically writing a letter of apology and another in support of the reunification efforts. The letters, both subject to Maase’s approval, were to “explicitly and convincingly” disabuse the children of “their false beliefs about their father.”

“I’m not signing anything Loretta Maase sends me,” said Hollie, who despite having 50% custody before the Turning Points treatment began hasn’t seen the boys since December. “I’m not putting my kids through more of her ‘treatment.’ I never consented to this, and I never will. How this is not a violation of my parental rights, I do not know.”

“I Don’t Know of Any Other Option”

Years before the children were sent to Turning Points, the court appointed reunification therapists to address their resistance and ill will toward their father.

Karly McGuire said during the year she counseled the family she came to believe that Jordan’s parenting style was the cause of his sons’ continued resistance to him, according to her testimony. Jordan disagreed, she said.

McGuire, who holds a Ph.D. in family therapy, told the court that Jordan constantly sent her videos about parental alienation. And he accused Hollie of spearheading a campaign of parental alienation against him and causing the rift between him and his sons.

After years of therapy, the boys continued to report they were being harmed by their father and violently resisted visitation with him. The 12-year-old posted a video on TikTok with a gun barrel in his mouth, and all three of Jordan and Hollie’s sons declared a “suicide pact” if they were forced to live with their father, according to court documents. (The oldest of the three brothers is an adult and did not participate in the reunification program.)

If you or someone you know needs help, here are a few resources:

-Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

-Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. to reach a crisis counselor: 741741

Bryce Froerer, appointed by the court to represent the boys’ interests in the custody case, cites worries of self-harm by the 12-year-old in his motion recommending treatment at Turning Points. (Obtained by ProPublica)

Bryce Froerer, a guardian ad litem appointed by the court to represent the boys’ interests in the custody case, told the court that their refusal to visit their father and their threats of self-harm were evidence of parental alienation. He also said a more severe intervention was needed to address it, according to court documents.

The “conservative, cautious approach” advocated by McGuire wasn’t working, argued Froerer, who has no psychological training, according to his office. He recommended they instead attend Turning Points and follow its practice of prohibiting the children from seeing the “alienating parent” for at least 90 days. Froerer admitted that he had “very little experience” with Turning Points, beyond speaking with Maase and reviewing some promotional materials.

“I don’t know of any other option at this point besides trying this program,” he told the court. “The alternative, from my perspective, Your Honor, is to linger on. And it is not my recommendation that we linger on.”

Froerer declined to speak with ProPublica. After the news organization requested an interview, he petitioned the court to seal the case.

McGuire testified that she cautioned Froerer against sending the boys to an intervention like Turning Points. She had grown concerned about their increasing despondency during her sessions, which she attributed to burnout from all of the court-ordered therapy. She believed separating them from their mother, the primary caregiver for most of their lives, would further harm their mental health.

But Froerer’s argument prevailed. Christina Wilson, the judicial commissioner overseeing the case, agreed that the court was running out of options. Though she also admitted knowing little about it — asking at one point “how the program works” — she ordered the boys to participate in the intervention.

“When that’s done, we can come back here and talk about what happened,” Froerer said. “And if things have improved, wonderful. And if things haven’t improved,” he paused, “I don’t know.”

A spokesperson for the court said Wilson was unable to comment on “any past or current cases.”

A Courtroom Affliction

The family’s trip to Texas was intended to repair a case of parental alienation. Advocates and critics debate whether it’s a real ailment, but they agree on one thing: It is only diagnosed and treated in the family courtroom.

“Other kinds of psychological dysfunctions that show up in court tend to show up elsewhere as well, whereas parental alienation is a process that is specifically brought to court to remedy,” said Demosthenes Lorandos, an attorney and parental alienation scholar who has written about a reunification program that uses methods similar to Turning Points. Lorandos defends parental alienation as a legitimate diagnosis and believes reunification camps are a safe and effective way to treat the condition. Lorandos, who also holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, said he does not know of another psychological dysfunction that only shows up in court.

Dr. David Corwin, a professor and director of pediatric forensic services at the University of Utah and a past president of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, disputes that parental alienation is a legitimate disorder. It almost exclusively affects children of parents with higher socioeconomic status, he said. “True mental health disorders are more equally distributed throughout the population, regardless of socioeconomic status, class or social context.”

Gottlieb told ProPublica that she created Turning Points at the request of lawyers whose clients were seeking intensive treatment for alienation. Gottlieb, who trained Maase, has expanded to meet the demand, including the Texas location and a program in California.

Maase said Jordan paid her company $12,000 for the Texas sessions. Today, the price for the four-day treatment is $15,000.

Lorandos said he charges $5,000 a day for expert testimony in parental alienation cases, and the bill for his services on a single case has reached $50,000.

“Business is booming,” said Robin Deutsch, chair of the American Psychological Association’s working group on high conflict family relationships involving children.

She is a critic of Turning Points and programs like it, saying their treatments don’t address the complex dynamics that cause fractures within families. “The court has to put all their eggs in the parental alienation basket. And the kids will suffer because of it,” Deutsch said. (Previously, Deutsch ran a reunification camp that she says differed in its approach to family fractures; she said the camp is no longer in operation.)

Outside the courtroom, the ailment that the programs claim to heal — parental alienation — has struggled to gain legitimacy. Medical and psychological professionals, including the American Psychiatric Association, have rejected it as a mental disorder. And the special report released by the United Nations Human Rights Council blasted parental alienation as a “pseudo-concept” and recommended member states prohibit its use in family courts.

The theory has also been shunned by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges for failing to meet court evidentiary standards.

Jennifer Hoult, an attorney and legal scholar, has written about why parental alienation fails to meet national standards for court admissibility. She said the theory is based on a fallacy that parents have a right to be loved. “There is no legal right to force your children to love you, respect you or even like you,” she said.

Gottlieb, who spoke to ProPublica in February for another story, argues alienation typically begins when people believe children’s claims of abuse. “Everyone knows children lie,” Gottlieb told ProPublica. “Lying is so instinctual — children love to make up stories. Why on earth do we believe that children are reporting accurately?”

Little independent research has examined the long-term effects of reunification camps on children.

A 2021 evaluation led by Jennifer Jill Harman, an associate professor of psychology at Colorado State University who believes parental alienation is a genuine diagnosis, analyzed video recordings of Gottlieb’s intervention with 15 families. Based on Gottlieb’s “self-reported” success during the intervention itself, the evaluation found the program was safe and had a 96% rate of effectiveness.

According to Harman, the analysis didn’t look at the treatment’s long-term effectiveness. And the study was intended to “promote” the program and refute claims that its interventions “are traumatic for children and cause long-term harm,” according to Harman’s application to the Colorado State University Institutional Review Board for the project. Gottlieb was involved in designing and executing the evaluation of her program, records show.

Harman declined to comment. Gottlieb didn’t respond to requests to comment for this story.

Jennifer Bard, an expert in human-subjects research law and a professor at the University of Cincinnati, questioned the value of this evaluation of Turning Points.

“The fact that the person who stands to profit by the findings of this study designed it should cause considerable concern,” Bard said. “It’s almost as if this study was put together to support a predetermined conclusion, which is not what studies are supposed to do.”

Sessions Spiral Out of Control

On Dec. 1, police officers arrived at Jordan’s brick-front home in Syracuse, Utah. He had called for help with a “juvenile problem.” His two sons were refusing to be taken to Turning Points as the court had ordered, according to police records.

Eventually, the boys agreed to go, and the group that traveled to Texas included Jordan’s new wife (the boys had not previously met her) and stepchildren, and the boys’ paternal uncle and cousins, according to testimony. The boys’ older brother, Xander, who is 19, opted out of the program.

Maase held full-day sessions at the family’s vacation rental. (The address on the Turning Points for Families Texas website is a post office box at a strip mall in Austin.)

In discussing the program, the judge and commissioner overseeing the case referred to Maase repeatedly as a “doctor,” though Maase is not a doctor and does not refer to herself as such. She is a licensed professional counselor with a master’s degree in counseling and family therapy. She is not permitted to provide or advertise herself as providing psychological or medical services, according to the executive director of the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Council. Maase also operates a counseling company called ParentRise, which provides therapy to families.

Jordan testified that after the sessions began, Maase instructed him to play for the boys the recording of the July 1, 2019, domestic dispute between him and his ex-wife.

Hollie said during the dispute she lunged to grab a phone when she realized her then-husband was using it to record them. She denies being physically violent with Jordan.

The incident led to Hollie’s arrest. She was charged with domestic violence in the presence of a child and disorderly conduct. She pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were later dismissed.

Maase told the court that introducing children to recordings and documents of their parents’ domestic disputes is “standard procedure” at her camp in order to correct children’s “false narrative” about the alienated parent — in this case Jordan.

In her report to the court, Maase wrote that throughout their time in Texas the boys showed “inadequate compliance, aggressive and violent behaviors, and overall lack of progress.”

Texas police officers were called several times to respond to the 16-year-old’s threats of violence toward himself and others. Though he weighed only 111 pounds, the teenager had to be physically restrained several times by family members before police arrived.

According to accounts from those who participated in the intervention, Maase instructed adult family members to physically coerce the boys to cooperate with the treatment. According to one account, Maase recorded the therapy sessions over the boys’ objections and repeatedly threatened them, including telling the older boy that he would go to jail if he didn’t cooperate and might never see his mother again. According to more than one account, Maase took away the boys’ food during the intervention in order to compel participation.

Maase told ProPublica that these claims are “preposterous.” “I advise that you turn your attention to the motives of those who would make such assertions in the first place,” she wrote in an email.

Since the intervention, the children have been barred from participating in individual therapy.

In her report to the court, Turning Points counselor Loretta Maase states that individual therapy would be considered dangerous to the children. (Obtained by ProPublica)

Such prohibitions are standard Turning Points protocol. Maase explained to the court that interacting with therapists who aren’t part of Turning Points could be “dangerous” because they might encourage the children to believe “they had abusive past experiences when, in fact, they did not.”

Separated From Their Mother

After returning from Texas, the boys remained with their father, beginning the 90-day separation from their mother and any relatives who had defended her in the dispute.

In such programs the separation can be extended by the facilitator if the children or the accused parent fail to comply with the treatment.

“Sometimes the 90-day order can turn into a forever order,” Deutsch said.

On Dec. 6, the day after their return from Texas, Jordan brought the 16-year-old to a Salt Lake City emergency room out of fear he would hurt himself or others, according to court documents.

The teenager told the doctor that he had attended a “brainwashing camp” and felt “unsafe” with his father. He said that he had been physically assaulted while at the Turning Points program, according to medical records. The medical report described “faint linear marks” on his upper arms, where the patient said his father had grabbed him.

Another teenager treated years ago by Turning Points in upstate New York also alleged he was abused during his therapy sessions. According to a July 2016 police report, an officer was dispatched to the home of Gottlieb, the Turning Points founder, to investigate claims that a 16-year-old, Caleb Thomas, had been “dropped off at the therapist's residence” and “assaulted and thrown in a closet.” No charges were filed.

Thomas told ProPublica that when he protested Gottlieb’s attempts to record his therapy sessions, he was pinned to the floor by his father and another man. Thomas said he escaped through a window, intending to return to his mother, but was caught by police.

Lt. Craig Wood, the police officer who responded to the report, said he recalled Gottlieb showing him an order from a Delaware family court judge, placing the teen in her care. “I found it unusual that they couldn’t find a doctor closer to where they lived, but she’s a specialist, I guess,” he said.

Gottlieb did not respond to a request for comment.

The week after Jordan took his 16-year-old son to the emergency room, he brought his 12-year-old son to the ER for “suicidal ideation with intent.”

The boy also told medical staff about the “alienation camp,” where he was “threatened that he would be arrested if he didn’t cooperate,” according to medical records. He told hospital staff that while there he had been forced to look at documents and watch video showing that “his mom was a ‘bad person.’”

The 12-year-old said that at his father’s house he was being “restrained daily” if he didn’t do what his dad wanted, and he said he felt “mentally broken down” because of his father’s threats that he would never again see his mother. The boy disclosed to medical staff that his father had sexually abused him at age 11. According to the medical report, Utah’s Department of Children and Family Services is investigating the boy’s claims. DCFS declined to comment.

Jordan did not respond to requests for comment about the allegation. He told hospital staff that multiple DCFS cases had been opened against him and closed because of a lack of evidence. He said he believed his ex-wife had made false claims about him to the children to further alienate them from him, according to court documents.

The child told medical staff that if he was forced to return to his father’s house, he would “find a way to kill himself.” He was admitted for inpatient psychiatric care.

Jordan’s father, Brent, testified in the hearing earlier this year that he has long-standing concerns about his son’s parenting and the effect the reunification camp has had on his grandsons.

“They don’t feel safe with police officers, they don’t trust you, they don’t trust their father. And the reason is because they told their story of abuse and what happens is they get shoved back into the hands of their abuser every time,” Brent testified. “How can you ask a child to rationalize that?”

Police have been called to Jordan’s home multiple times since the family’s return from Texas, according to 911 records. On Dec. 15, a juvenile court judge ordered the children to be removed from the home and placed with their mom. Police brought the 12-year-old to Hollie (the 16-year-old had already run away to his mother’s home). The next day, Jordan secured an order returning the boys to his house. Police assisted with the transfer.

In February, Maase advised the court to continue prohibiting the boys from seeing their mother until Hollie “fully acknowledges the alienation and discontinues her negative behaviors.” The children must first “relinquish their alienating thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, feelings and behavior” before they are allowed to see her, Maase wrote in a report to the court.

Judge Ronald G. Russell ordered the children to continue Maase’s treatment.

Hollie has not been permitted to communicate with her children who are minors since December. In February, she moved from her home in Utah to dissuade the boys from running away from their father’s house to see her, as they had done multiple times. If they do it again, the no-contact order will be extended, Hollie said.

The Oldest Brother

As a legal adult, the court couldn’t force Xander, the oldest of the three brothers, to participate in the reunification program.

Jordan invited him to join them in Texas, texting at the end of November, “It will not be the same without you. I have a ticket ready to purchase for you to come with us. I love you and hope to be your life again.”

Jordan invited his son Xander via text message at the end of November to participate in the reunification program in Texas. (Provided by Xander)

Xander never responded.

He told ProPublica that he had been through years of failed court-mandated reunification therapy and had no intention of participating in more.

Still, he has struggled with feelings of guilt for not being with his brothers as they suffered through the reunification camp.

“Maybe if I had gone, I could have protected them,” he said. “I’m having trouble forgiving myself for that.”

Clarification, May 18, 2023: This article was updated to clarify that the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges has shunned the theory of parental alienation.

Mariam Elba and Mollie Simon contributed research. Michael Squires contributed reporting.

by Daniel Golden, ProPublica, and Kunal Purohit

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. This article was co-published with The Chronicle of Higher Education.

On a family trip to the Jersey Shore in the summer of 2021, Sophia’s go-to meal was the Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich. The buns were toasty, the chicken was crispy and the fries didn’t spill from the bag.

Sophia was entering her sophomore year in prep school, but her parents were already thinking ahead to college. They paid to enroll her in an online service called Scholar Launch, whose programs start at $3,500. Scholar Launch, which started in 2019, connects high school students with mentors who work with them on research papers that can be published and enhance their college applications.

Publication “is the objective,” Scholar Launch says on its website. “We have numerous publication partners, all are peer-reviewed journals.”

The prospect appealed to Sophia. “Nowadays, having a publication is kind of a given” for college applicants, she said. “If you don’t have one, you’re going to have to make it up in some other aspect of your application.”

Sophia said she chose marketing as her field because it “sounded interesting.” She attended weekly group sessions with a Scholar Launch mentor, a marketing executive who also taught at an Ivy League business school, before working one-on-one with a teaching assistant. Assigned to analyze a company’s marketing strategy, she selected Chick-fil-A.

Sophia’s paper offered a glowing assessment. She credited Chick-fil-A as “responsible for the popularity of the chicken sandwich,” praised its fare as healthier than fast-food burgers, saluted its “humorous yet honest” slogan (a cow saying, “Eat mor chikin”) and admired its “family-friendly” attitude and “traditional beliefs,” exemplified by closing its restaurants on Sundays. Parts of her paper sounded like a customer endorsement (and she acknowledged to ProPublica that her marketing analysis could’ve been stronger). Neither too dry nor too juicy, the company’s signature sandwich “is the perfect blend to have me wanting more after every bite,” she wrote. “Just from the taste,” Chick-fil-A “is destined for success.”

Her heartfelt tribute to the chicken chain appeared on the website of a new online journal for high school research, the Scholarly Review. The publication touts its “thorough process of review” by “highly accomplished professors and academics,” but it also displays what are known as preprints. They aren’t publications “in the traditional sense” and aren’t vetted by Scholarly Review’s editorial board, according to Roger Worthington, its chair.

That preprint platform is where Sophia’s paper appeared. Now a 17-year-old high school junior, she said she wasn’t aware of the difference between the journal and the preprint platform, and she didn’t think the less prestigious placement would hurt her college chances: “It’s just important that there’s a link out there.”

Sophia is preparing to apply to college at a time when the criteria for gaining entry are in flux. The Supreme Court appears poised to curtail race-conscious affirmative action. Grade inflation makes it harder to pick students based on GPA, since so many have A averages. And the SAT and ACT tests, long criticized for favoring white and wealthy students, have fallen out of fashion at many universities, which have made them optional or dropped them entirely.

As these differentiators recede and the number of applications soars, colleges are grappling with the latest pay-to-play maneuver that gives the rich an edge: published research papers. A new industry is extracting fees from well-heeled families to enable their teenage children to conduct and publish research that colleges may regard as a credential.

At least 20 online research programs for high schoolers have sprung up in the U.S. and abroad in recent years, along with a bevy of journals that publish the work. This growth was aided by the pandemic, which normalized online education and stymied opportunities for in-person research.

“You’re teaching students to be cynical about research. That’s the really corrosive part. ‘I can hire someone to do it. We can get it done, we can get it published, what’s the big deal?’”

—Kent Anderson, past president of the Society for Scholarly Publishing

The consequence has been a profusion of published research papers by high school students. According to four months of reporting by ProPublica, online student journals now present work that ranges from serious inquiry by young scholars to dubious papers whose main qualification seems to be that the authors’ parents are willing to pay, directly or indirectly, to have them published. Usually, the projects are closely directed by graduate students or professors who are paid to be mentors. College admissions staff, besieged by applicants proffering links to their studies, verify that a paper was published but are often at a loss to evaluate its quality.

Moreover, ProPublica’s reporting shows that purveyors of online research sometimes engage in questionable practices. Some services portray affiliated publications as independent journals. Others have inflated their academic mentors’ credentials or offered freebies to college admissions consultants who could provide referrals. When asked about these practices by ProPublica, several services responded by reversing course on them.

The business of churning out high school research is a “fast-growing epidemic,” said one longtime Ivy League admissions officer, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak for his university. “The number of outfits doing that has trebled or quadrupled in the past few years.

“There are very few actual prodigies. There are a lot of precocious kids who are working hard and doing advanced things. A sophomore in high school is not going to be doing high-level neuroscience. And yet, a very high number of kids are including this” in their applications.

The programs serve at least 12,000 students a year worldwide. Most families are paying between $2,500 and $10,000 to improve their odds of getting into U.S. universities that accept as few as 1 in every 25 applicants. Some of the biggest services are located in China, and international students abound even in several U.S.-based programs.

The services pair high schoolers with academic mentors for 10-15 weeks to produce research papers. Online services typically shape the topic, direction and duration of the project, and urge students to complete and publish a paper regardless of how fruitful the exploration has been. “Publication specialists” then help steer the papers into a dizzying array of online journals and preprint platforms. Almost any high school paper can find an outlet. Alongside hardcore science papers are ones with titles like “The Willingness of Humans to Settle on Mars, and the Factors that Affect it,” “Social Media; Blessing Or Curse” and “Is Bitcoin A Blessing Or A Curse?”

“You’re teaching students to be cynical about research,” said Kent Anderson, past president of the Society for Scholarly Publishing and former publishing director of the New England Journal of Medicine. “That’s the really corrosive part. ‘I can hire someone to do it. We can get it done, we can get it published, what’s the big deal?’”

The research services brag about how many of their alumni get into premier U.S. universities. Lumiere Education, for example, has served 1,500 students, half of them international, since its inception in the summer of 2020. In a survey of its alumni, it found that 9.8% who applied to an Ivy League university or to Stanford last year were accepted. That’s considerably higher than the overall acceptance rates at those schools.

Such statistics don’t prove that the students were admitted because of their research. Still, research can influence admissions decisions. At Harvard, “evidence of substantial scholarship” can elevate an applicant, according to a university filing in a lawsuit challenging its use of affirmative action in admissions. The University of Pennsylvania’s admissions dean, Whitney Soule, boasted last year that nearly one-third of accepted students “engaged in academic research” in high school, including some who “co-authored publications included in leading journals.” A Penn spokesperson declined to identify the journals. Yale, Columbia and Brown, among others, encourage applicants to send research.

One admissions dean acknowledged that conferring an advantage on those who submit published papers benefits affluent applicants. “Research is one of these activities that we’re very aware they’re not offered equitably,” Stuart Schmill of MIT said. Nevertheless, MIT invites applicants to submit research and inquires whether and where it was published.

Admissions officers often lack the time and expertise to evaluate this research. The first reader of each application typically takes 10 minutes or less to go through it, which means noting the existence of the published paper without actually reading it. If the applicant is on the cusp, a second staffer more versed in the subject area may read their file. The first reader “is very young and in almost all cases majored in humanities or social sciences,” said Jon Reider, a former admissions officer at Stanford. “They can’t tell if a paper in the sciences means anything or is new at all.”

As a result, admissions staff may rely on outside opinions. Schmill said that MIT pays more attention to the mentor’s recommendation than the actual research. Academic mentors, even when paid, “do a pretty good job being honest and objective,” he said. The longtime Ivy League admissions officer was more skeptical, likening the mentors to expert witnesses in a trial.

Brown admissions dean Logan Powell described faculty as “invaluable partners” in reviewing research. But many professors would rather not be bothered. “Our faculty don’t want to spend all their time reading research projects from 17- and 18-year-olds,” the veteran Ivy League admissions officer said.

“Our faculty don’t want to spend all their time reading research projects from 17- and 18-year-olds.”

—A longtime Ivy League admissions officer

Also complicating the admissions office’s ability to assess the papers is staffers’ unfamiliarity with the byzantine world of online publications favored by the research services. Several have confusingly similar names: the Journal of Student Research, the Journal of Research High School, the International Journal of High School Research. Selective outlets like the Journal of Student Research and the Scholarly Review also post preprints, making it hard to determine what, if any, standards a manuscript was held to.

Some also hide ties to research services. Scholarly Review doesn’t tell readers that it’s founded and funded by Scholar Launch. The lack of transparency was “not a conscious decision,” Scholar Launch co-founder Joel Butterly said. “Our intent is to keep it as separate as possible from Scholar Launch.”

The companies are intertwined in at least two respects. Worthington, who chairs the Scholarly Review’s editorial board, also works as a mentor for Scholar Launch and InGenius Prep, a college admissions counseling service co-founded by Butterly. Three of the seven articles in the Scholarly Review’s inaugural issue were written by students who Worthington advised, possibly enhancing their college prospects.

“Editors selecting papers they were involved in is a no-no,” said Anderson, the former New England Journal of Medicine publishing director.

Worthington told ProPublica that he had recused himself from discussing those manuscripts. Then Scholar Launch changed its policy. “For future issues,” Worthington said in a subsequent email, “the company will disclose mentoring arrangements in advance to make doubly sure that nobody will be reviewing work by a former student.” Worthington also said, after ProPublica raised questions, that Scholarly Review would make it “more obvious” that the editorial board is “not responsible” for articles on its preprint platform. (During ProPublica’s reporting process, Sophia’s Chick-fil-A paper was removed from the site.) The platform, which is managed by Scholar Launch and InGenius Prep, has been given a separate section on the Scholarly Review website, and further changes are likely, he said.

Online research services are an offshoot of the booming college-admissions-advising industry. They draw many of their students from the same affluent population that hires private counselors. Many families that are already paying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for advice on essay writing and extracurricular activities pay thousands more for research help. Scholar Launch charges $3,500 for “junior” research programs and between $4,500 and $8,800 for advanced research, according to its website.

Polygence, one of the largest online high school research programs in the U.S., cultivates college counselors. The service, which was founded in 2019 and worked with more than 2,000 students last year, has developed relationships with counselors whose clients receive a discount for using Polygence.

Polygence proclaimed April to be Independent Educational Consultants Appreciation Month. It planned to raffle off prizes including “an all-expenses paid roundtrip to a college campus tour of your choice” — it suggested the University of Hawaii — and “2 free pro bono Polygence research projects.”

Such perks appear to brush up against ethics codes of two college counseling associations, which prohibit members from accepting substantial compensation for student referrals. Asked about these rules, Polygence co-founder Jin Chow said the event celebrates all counselors, “regardless of whether or not they have partnered with us or sent us students.” Polygence then dropped the tour prize and added two more free research projects.

Then there’s the question of credentials. Lumiere Education’s website has routinely identified mentors as Ph.D.s even when they don’t have a doctorate and described itself as “founded by Oxford and Harvard PhDs,” even though its founders, Dhruva Bhat and Stephen Turban, are pursuing doctorates. It’s “shorthand,” Turban said. “We’re not trying to deceive anyone.” After ProPublica questioned the practice, Lumiere changed mentors’ credentials on its website from “PhD” to “PhD student.”

Paid “mentors,” who are frequently doctoral students, play key roles in the process of generating papers by high schoolers. The job is “one of the most lucrative side hustles for graduate students,” as one Columbia Ph.D. candidate in political science put it. Another Ph.D. candidate, who mentored for two services, said that one paid her $200 an hour, and the other paid $150 — far more than the $25 an hour she earned as a teaching assistant in an Ivy League graduate course.

“[The first reader of a college application] is very young and in almost all cases majored in humanities or social sciences. They can’t tell if a paper in the sciences means anything or is new at all.”

—Jon Reider, former admissions officer at Stanford

In some instances, the mentors seem to function as something more than advisers. Since high schoolers generally don’t arrive with a research topic, the mentor helps them choose it, and then may pitch in with writing, editing and scientific analysis.

A former consultant at Athena Education, a service in India, recalled that a client thanked her for his admission to a world-famous university. Admissions interviewers had praised his paper, which she had heavily revised. The university “was tricked,” the consultant said, adding that other students who were academically stronger went to second-tier universities.

The Cornell Undergraduate Economic Review, which accepts about 10% of submissions, published its first-ever paper by a high school student in 2021. Its editor-in-chief was impressed that the author, a Lumiere client in the Boston area, had used advanced econometrics to demonstrate that a reduced federal income tax subsidy for electric vehicles had caused sales to plummet.

But another editor, Andres Aradillas Fernandez, said he wondered whether the high-level work “was not at least partially” attributable to the mentor, a Ph.D. candidate in economics at an Ivy League university. He also felt uneasy that access to services like Lumiere is largely based on wealth. After Aradillas Fernandez became editor-in-chief last year and Lumiere clients submitted weaker papers, he notified Lumiere that the journal would no longer publish high school research.

The Boston-area Lumiere client declined comment. Turban, Lumiere’s co-founder, said the paper was “100 percent” the student’s work. The mentor said he showed the high schooler which mathematical formulas to use, but the student was “very motivated” and did the calculations himself. “I have to spoon feed him a bit on what to read and sometimes how to do it,” the mentor said.

The oldest online research mentorship program for high schoolers, Pioneer Academics, founded in 2012, has maintained relatively rigorous standards. It accepted 37% of its 4,765 applicants last year, and 13% of its students received full scholarships based on need. Pioneer “never promises academic journal publication,” according to its website.

“In our experience, we have noticed that [the Journal of Student Research] nearly never gives edits, and students always just advance straight to being accepted.”

—Manas Pant, a publication strategy associate at Lumiere Education

“The push for publication leads young scholars astray,” Pioneer co-founder Matthew Jaskol said. “The message is that looking like a champion is more important than training to be a great athlete.”

Oberlin College gives credits to students for passing Pioneer courses. The college’s annual reviews have found that research done for Pioneer “far exceeded” what would be expected to earn credit, said Michael Parkin, an associate dean of arts and sciences at Oberlin and a former Pioneer mentor, who oversees the collaboration. Pioneer pays Oberlin a small fee for each nonscholarship student given credit.

At Pioneer and other services, the most fulfilling projects are often impelled by the student’s curiosity, and gaining an edge in college admissions is a byproduct rather than the raison d’etre. Alaa Aboelkhair, the daughter of a government worker in Egypt, was fascinated as a child by how the stars constantly change their position in the sky. Googling in 2021, before her senior year of high school, she came across Lumiere, which gave her a scholarship. “The fact that we only know 5% of the universe drove me to study more,” she said. “That is my passion.”

At the suggestion of her Lumiere mentor, Christian Ferko, Alaa examined whether hypothetical particles known as axions could be detected by converting them into light. Lumiere was paying Ferko for weekly sessions, but he talked with Alaa several times a week. He emailed some textbooks to her and she found other sources on her own, working late into the night to finish her paper.

Since she chose not to submit her ACT score, the paper and Ferko’s recommendation were vital to her college applications. In March 2022, a Princeton admissions officer called Ferko to ask about Alaa. Ferko compared her to a first-year graduate student and said she showed the potential to make new discoveries. “My impression is this is something colleges do when they’re right on the fence of whether to admit the student,” Ferko said. “I did my best to advocate for her, without overstating.”

Princeton admitted only 3.3% of international applicants to the class of 2026, including Alaa. She said she received a full scholarship. (“Optional submissions are one factor among many in our holistic review process,” Princeton spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss said.)

A short walk from India’s first Trump Tower, in an upscale neighborhood known for luxury homes and gourmet restaurants, is the Mumbai office of Athena Education, a startup that promises to help students “join the ranks of Ivy League admits.” An attendant in a white uniform waits at a standing desk to greet visitors in a lounge lined with paintings and featuring a coffee bar and a glass facade with a stunning view of the downtown skyline. “We all strive to get things done while sipping Italian coffee brewed in-house,” a recent Athena ad read.

Co-founded in 2014 by two Princeton graduates, Athena has served more than 2,000 students. At least 80 clients have been admitted to elite universities, and 87% have gotten into top-50 U.S. colleges, according to its website. One client said that Athena charges more than a million rupees, or $12,200 a year, six times India’s annual per capita income. Athena declined comment for this story.

Around 2020, Athena expanded its research program and started emphasizing publication. Athena and similar services in South Korea and China cater to international students whose odds of getting accepted at a U.S. college are even longer than those American students face. MIT, for instance, accepted 1.4% of international applicants last year, compared with 5% of domestic applicants.

A former consultant said Athena told her that its students were the “creme de la creme.” Instead, she estimated, 7 out of 10 needed “hand-holding.”

For publication, Athena students have a readily available option: Questioz, an online outlet founded by an Athena client and run by high schoolers. Former Editor-in-Chief Eesha Garimella said that a mentor at Athena “guides us on the paper editing and publication process.” Garimella said Questioz publishes 75%-80% of submissions.

Athena students also place their work in the Houston-based Journal of Student Research. Founded in 2012 to publish undergraduate and graduate work, in 2017 the journal began running high school papers, which now make up 85% of its articles, co-founders Mir Alikhan and Daharsh Rana wrote in an email.

Last June, a special edition of the journal presented research by 19 Athena students. They tested noise-reduction algorithms and used computer vision to compare the stances of professional and amateur golfers. A survey of Hong Kong residents concluded that people who grew up near the ocean are more likely to value its conservation. Athena’s then-head of research was listed as a co-author on 10 of the projects.

Publication in JSR was “pretty simple,” said former Athena student Anjani Nanda, who surveyed 103 people about their awareness of female genital mutilation and found that they were poorly informed. “I never got any edits or suggested changes from their side.”

As Nanda’s experience suggests, virtual journals dedicated to high school research tend to be less choosy than traditional publications. They reflect a larger shift in academic publishing. Print journals typically accept a small percentage of submissions and depend on subscription revenue. Online publications tend to be free for the reader but charge a fee to the author — incentivizing the publications to boost revenue by accepting many articles.

The Journal of Student Research exemplifies this turnabout. It describes itself as peer-reviewed, the gold standard of traditional academic publishing. It relies on more than 90 reviewers at colleges across the U.S., and the typical review takes 12-24 weeks, according to its website.

“The push for publication leads young scholars astray. The message is that looking like a champion is more important than training to be a great athlete.”

—Matthew Jaskol, co-founder of Pioneer Academics

In reality, it may not be so stringent. Four of eight reviewers whom ProPublica contacted said the journal has never asked them to evaluate a manuscript. (Some academics agreed to review for JSR but forgot over time, Alikhan and Rana said; others specialize in fields where the journal has received few submissions.)

And while authors pay an “article processing charge” of $50 at submission and $200 at acceptance, for an extra $300 they can expedite “fast-track” review in four to five weeks. One Athena client who fast-tracked his manuscript so that it could be published in time for his college application said JSR accepted it without changes. He was admitted to a top-10 U.S. university. “I think it was important,” said the student. “I didn’t have much leadership in school so [I] needed other ways to get better extracurriculars.”

In “The Ultimate Guide to the Journal of Student Research,” a Lumiere “publication strategy associate” described JSR as a “safety” option that accepts 65% of submissions from Lumiere clients. “In our experience, we have noticed that JSR nearly never gives edits, and students always just advance straight to being accepted,” the Lumiere associate wrote.

Alikhan and Rana defended the journal’s standards. They said that many papers, which are submitted with the guidance of top mentors, hardly need editing: “Honestly, it is not the journal’s fault if their advisors working closely with students produce outstanding manuscripts.”

The journals are deluged with submissions. Founded in 2019, the International Journal of High School Research has expanded from four to six issues a year and may add more, said executive producer Fehmi Damkaci. “There is a greater demand than we envisioned,” he said, adding that the journal has become more selective.

As the pandemic closed labs and restricted fieldwork, forcing students to collect data and conduct interviews online, the Journal of Student Research “received an increased volume of submissions,” Alikhan and Rana said. Polygence complained that several students who wanted to cite publications in their college applications hadn’t heard back from JSR for months. The papers were eventually published.

Preprint platforms don’t even bother with peer review. The usual justification for preprints is that they quickly disseminate vital research, such as new information about vaccines or medical treatments. High school projects are rarely so urgent. Still, Polygence started a preprint platform last fall. “The idea is for students to showcase their work and have them be judged by the scientific/peer/college community for their merits,” co-founder Janos Perczel wrote to ProPublica.

The Journal of Student Research hosts preprints by clients of Scholar Launch and two other services. One preprint only listed the author’s first name, Nitya. Leaving out the last name is a small mistake, but one that hints at the frenzy to publish quickly.

Online research programs could end up victimized by their own success. College admissions consultant Jillian Nataupsky estimated that one-third of her clients undertake virtual research. “For students trying to find ways to differentiate themselves in this crazy competitive landscape, this has risen as a really great option,” she said. But “it’s becoming a little more commonplace. I can see it becoming completely over-inundated in the next few years.”

Then the search can begin for the next leg up in college admissions.

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Kirsten Berg and Jeff Kao contributed research.

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