What is the Meritocracy Program?
The Science and Technology Innovation Reserve Talent Training Program for middle school students (" Talent Program "for short) is a top-notch innovative talent training program jointly organized and implemented by China Association for Science and Technology and the Ministry of Education. Its purpose is to support famous scientists to guide middle school students to carry out scientific inquiry projects, stimulate middle school students' interest in basic disciplines, help them grasp the nature of science, establish scientific thoughts, master scientific thinking and scientific inquiry methods, and cultivate scientific spirit and attitude, so as to find a group of outstanding middle school students with scientific potential and promote the cultivation of reserve talents for scientific and technological innovation.
The Meritocracy Program is in Shanghai
Shanghai Association for Science and Technology and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, in accordance with the Notice of the General Office of China Association for Science and Technology on the Pilot Work of the Middle School Students' Science and Technology Innovation Reserve Talent Training Program (2013) No. 23, with Fudan University and Shanghai Jiaotong University as participating units, officially launched the training work of middle school students' Talent Plan in April 2013. From 2022, three new university training bases, Tongji University, China Normal University and East China Science and Technology, will be added, and the number of students trained will increase to more than 180 per year.
Since the project was launched ten years ago, the university has recommended more than 100 well-known scientists as mentors and executive mentors to guide outstanding middle school students to carry out research and practice on adolescent scientific and technological innovation topics, and the cumulative number of training has reached nearly 1,000.
In December 2022, a total of 549 students entered the merit-based interview process.
After intense and rigorous evaluation by Fudan University, Jiaotong University, Tongji University, East China Normal University and East China Science and Technology University, 192 students were finally admitted as students of the 2023 Shanghai Middle School Students "Talent Program".

Materials request list
1. Student recommendation letter
Within 800 words, including but not limited to personal growth introduction (mainly science and innovation), understanding and understanding of the development of the applicant's research field, expected guidance content in the talent program, future planning, etc
2. Electronic version of senior high School entrance examination transcript
Shanghai junior high school graduation unified academic performance notice or certificate of exam results
3. Award certificate
District level and above, science and innovation or discipline
4, research project proposal report (important!)
Including the name of the proposed project, background and significance, research content, expected progress and results, feasibility analysis, references and so on
Preculture period
The Talent Program aims to help students who intend to apply for the "Talent Program" to better understand the purpose, purpose and basic requirements of the project, clarify psychological expectations, and learn and master the basic knowledge of relevant disciplines and necessary scientific research skills in advance.
The Shanghai Management Office of the Talent Program and the implementation school will carry out pre-training through online general studies courses, university lectures, and special reports of tutors, so that students can clear their scientific research direction and be ready to participate in the formal training.

The pre-training content of the talent program

• Guidance of five major subject research plans
• University tutor directory and recommendation list
• Information sessions at five universities
Shanghai "Talent Program" has strict restrictions on the grade of students, except for students who continue to train, only the new high school students can apply, and the opportunity to apply and be selected is only once!
What does it mean to be in the Meritocracy program?
The selected Talent Program can connect with many international scientific research competitions, and it is also one of the three affiliated competitions of ISEF(International Science and Engineering Grand Prix) in China (the other two are the Youth Science and Innovation Competition and Tomorrow's Little Scientist). And in these three tracks, the talent program is the highest probability of advancing ISEF way, no one!
Students who can be selected for ceiling-level science and innovation competitions like "ISEF" and even win awards will have a great advantage in university applications, especially in the application of American universities. American universities, especially NIU schools, increasingly value quantifiable academic results like ISEF, in other words, pay more attention to the academic depth and comprehensive ability of students.