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[efle]

3000 hours in a single lab with a 2nd authorship puts you above average even for the competitive crowd. Pubs aren't rare at top 10s but they also aren't expected/required. If you are not interviewed I promise it is not for a lacking research resume!

 

[efle]

Do you have a guess at what the average amount of research a candidate for top 40 schools would have?

I have no sense of what is normal for "top 40", really it's only the first 20ish that seem to be all about high stats and research. For the research powerhouses though, I'd say a year or two of research (part time during school year + full time summers) with some posters is typical. Pubs and/or full time gap year in research are not rare, but are a minority. A first author paper in a big journal like your friend is outstanding even for the tip-top, that's better than most can do during the course of a full PhD!

 

[aldol16]

I have no sense of what is normal for "top 40", really it's only the first 20ish that seem to be all about high stats and research. For the research powerhouses though, I'd say a year or two of research (part time during school year + full time summers) with some posters is typical. Pubs and/or full time gap year in research are not rare, but are a minority. A first author paper in a big journal like your friend is outstanding even for the tip-top, that's better than most can do during the course of a full PhD!

It is expected that PhD students write several first-author publications. Not all papers go to Nature or Science but we're talking about a Nature subsidiary here, which, depending on the field, is more likely than not not the top journal in the field. For instance, in chemistry, JACS has a broader readership and is seen as highly prestigious - perhaps harder to get into than Nature Chemistry. As a PhD student, you need first-author papers to get post-doc fellowships and, since all your publications matter, to get a tenure-track faculty position. Life in academia is hard.

 

[aldol16]

OP, "impressive" is relative. If you're talking about a research-intensive program like CCLCM or Stanford, among others, the bar for "impressive" is obviously higher than at other schools. You'll meet lots of interviewees at places like those who have authored papers - multiple papers, even. But for top 10 or top 20 schools, having a productive, intensive research experience is impressive if you can talk intelligently about it and back it up.

 

[efle]

It is expected that PhD students write several first-author publications. Not all papers go to Nature or Science but we're talking about a Nature subsidiary here, which, depending on the field, is more likely than not not the top journal in the field. For instance, in chemistry, JACS has a broader readership and is seen as highly prestigious - perhaps harder to get into than Nature Chemistry. As a PhD student, you need first-author papers to get post-doc fellowships and, since all your publications matter, to get a tenure-track faculty position. Life in academia is hard.

To my knowledge even the Nature field-specific divisions are big for the major fields, sure with other journals as big or bigger, but still big. Take Nature Neuroscience, there are other big names like Neuron, but what percentage of neuro PhDs - across the nation, not at whatever Harvard-level powerhouse you were in - do you think author papers in Nature Neuro or equivalent? Is it really inaccurate to say most grad students don't hit that level during their PhD?

 

[Lucca]

Most undergraduates in research don't publish, so any premed with a publication is going to be impressive.

By impressive i mean that they will have a (at a glance) more impressive research resume than most other premeds applying to med school. Whether or not that same person is "impressive" at Stanford where close to 50% of the matriculating class has a first author publication in the peer reviewed literature depends on the paper itself and others measures of productivity

 

[Endoxifen]

Impressive would be multiple first author publications, poster/stage presentations at national/international meetings, 1000s of hours of research, and stellar LOR. There's honestly not that much more that's possible at our level unless you already have a PhD.

 

[aldol16]

To my knowledge even the Nature field-specific divisions are big for the major fields, sure with other journals as big or bigger, but still big. Take Nature Neuroscience, there are other big names like Neuron, but what percentage of neuro PhDs - across the nation, not at whatever Harvard-level powerhouse you were in - do you think author papers in Nature Neuro or equivalent? Is it really inaccurate to say most grad students don't hit that level during their PhD?

I guess if you lump all PhD students together, you could say that. Any PhD student who wants any shot at a good post-doc or tenure-track position is going to publish in the most well-known journals in their field. These are the ones who will realistically stay in academia. The other PhDs go on to do other things, leave their program, and many leave the field altogether. So if you're saying that first-author publishing in a good journal in your field is something that most PhD candidates never reach, meaning the entire PhD candidate pool, then that's just a truism. Like "Oh, you're doing better than the high school dropouts! Great job!"

 

[efle]

I guess if you lump all PhD students together, you could say that. Any PhD student who wants any shot at a good post-doc or tenure-track position is going to publish in the most well-known journals in their field. These are the ones who will realistically stay in academia. The other PhDs go on to do other things, leave their program, and many leave the field altogether. So if you're saying that first-author publishing in a good journal in your field is something that most PhD candidates never reach, meaning the entire PhD candidate pool, then that's just a truism. Like "Oh, you're doing better than the high school dropouts! Great job!"

Not even all candidates, but all PhDs. I think the majority of people that successfully earn PhDs do not have first authored papers in journals of IF 15+, outside of the stratospheric tenure-bound crowd you've been immersed in!

And ouch, if that's the level of performance you need to get noticed for a good post-doc position, the number of applicants per position must be ridiculous

 

[Goro]

What is currently considered a decent to above average research resume? With so many students participating in meaningful research, I feel it is getting more difficult to distinguish yourself in this area. I've seen both extremes - a friend with a first-author pub in a nature subsidiary (wild, I know) had her pick of any school she wanted. I have also had friends with little to no research experience get into top 10 schools. So, what is considered above average now?

I'm finalizing my school list I'm hoping I'm a decent applicant for a lot of research heavy programs (e.g. Pitt, Case, CCLCM, etc.). My MCAT falls between their 25th - 50th percentile and I hope my research experiences make up for this. I have 1 second-second author pub, 3 posters, and 3000 hours with the same lab, but am unsure of how competitive or normal that is.

Here's what I consider to be impressive, from several SDNers who got into Top Schools:

*Research: ~a year of research-for-credits, posters at the time of application, co-first authored paper accepted in February and sent as an update; Gap year: clinical research at the med school (lots of observing procedures to gather data, consenting new participants, etc)

* Research Experience: 1500+ hours, multiple labs, 1 poster presentation, no publications

* strong research background with publication and industry experience

* 3 years research (received a fellowship; 4-5 years Clinical Volunteering (~580 hours) 1 Poster; 1 scholarship; 1 award; Attended neurology conference for Alzheimer's

 

[aldol16]

Not even all candidates, but all PhDs. I think the majority of people that successfully earn PhDs do not have first authored papers in journals of IF 15+, outside of the stratospheric tenure-bound crowd you've been immersed in!

And ouch, if that's the level of performance you need to get noticed for a good post-doc position, the number of applicants per position must be ridiculous

Impact factor isn't the best or accurate measure of how well-reputed a journal is. In chemistry, JACS has an IF of < 15 - and it's THE journal to publish in after Nature or Science. IF of "prestigious" journals varies by field and there's no universal measure of a "good" journal. Not to mention most of the high-impact journals only publish reviews. That's how they have such high IFs.

Again, if you include every PhD in that pool, then that's just a truism. It doesn't add to what you're trying to say. Successful PhDs (not those who have only successfully earned their PhD) will have at least one publication in a well reputed journal in their field by PhD graduation.

300-400 applicants for 1 position isn't uncommon. Search committees interview probably around 20 of them on-site for the job. And these are already self-selecting applicants - you're not applying to these positions if you don't have first author papers in good journals.

 

[Endoxifen]

Another thing to consider is how specialized your topic is. Your PI may recommend that you publish in the field specific journal, which often has a lower IF than the more general journals. It's all context dependent.

 

[aldol16]

Another thing to consider is how specialized your topic is. Your PI may recommend that you publish in the field specific journal, which often has a lower IF than the more general journals. It's all context dependent.

Those field-specific journals usually have broader in-field readership and that's a good thing for a niche subfield.

 

[Endoxifen]

Those field-specific journals usually have broader in-field readership and that's a good thing for a niche subfield.

Exactly. While it may look good to be published in a high IF journal, most of the real work in a field is done in the specialized journals. There, PIs can have real dialog. Not everything needs to or can be published in Nature. That should be reserved for paradigm-shifting discoveries or massive advances.

 

[aldol16]

Exactly. While it may look good to be published in a high IF journal, most of the real work in a field is done in the specialized journals. There, PIs can have real dialog. Not everything needs to or can be published in Nature. That should be reserved for paradigm-shifting discoveries or massive advances.

Or, as some on here would have you believe, **** on paper that just anybody can submit 😉

 

[aldol16]

I looked up my the Nature subsidiary journal my friend published in and it is IF ~5. I guess that's not as impressive as I thought, but she still gets to slap the Nature name on her CV. The journal I'm in has a IF ~5 too, but unless you're in the field you've never heard of it. I guess that's the power of Nature though.

It's the classic name-brand problem. "Everybody knows Harvard so it must be the best school for everything!" Just because a journal has the Nature name on it doesn't mean it's a good journal in that field, regardless of what naive people outside that field may think. Certain Nature pubs are super high-impact like Nature Nanotech but others are less well known within the field because they simply do not have the broad readership that's desirable. The next best thing to getting published in a journal is having the big names in the field read your research and know you. That's how you get on the short track to post-docs and faculty positions.

 

[LizzyM]

Funding, even if it is just an award of a few thousand for your time over the summer.
Presentation at a national meeting side by side with working professionals (not presentations only with other students)
A publication in a peer reviewed publication.

 

[Endoxifen]

Funding, even if it is just an award of a few thousand for your time over the summer.
Presentation at a national meeting side by side with working professionals (not presentations only with other students)
A publication in a peer reviewed publication.

Quick question, is listing departmental funding acceptable?

 

[LizzyM]

Quick question, is listing departmental funding acceptable?

I mean you propose the research and ask for the money and you are awarded the funding. If it was a competition among investigators, all the better.

 

[Endoxifen]

I mean you propose the research and ask for the money and you are awarded the funding. If it was a competition among investigators, all the better.

It was more like my PI went to talk to the department head and he gave us money. I might also be applying to my honors college for extra money, but I don't know yet.

 

[sat0ri]

I guess if you lump all PhD students together, you could say that. Any PhD student who wants any shot at a good post-doc or tenure-track position is going to publish in the most well-known journals in their field. These are the ones who will realistically stay in academia. The other PhDs go on to do other things, leave their program, and many leave the field altogether. So if you're saying that first-author publishing in a good journal in your field is something that most PhD candidates never reach, meaning the entire PhD candidate pool, then that's just a truism. Like "Oh, you're doing better than the high school dropouts! Great job!"

I have to strongly disagree. It's exceptional for even a faculty member to get a something like a Nature or JACS paper. I've work with many PI's and my current PI doesn't even a paper higher than ChemMedChem and she has about three HUGE research grants, heads a NIH study section, and it pretty much set for the rest of her life.

Since you know JACS, I'll also say my previous grad student mentor highest paper was JOC (a couple of them; 10-15 pubs total) and a few others in that field and he's currently at a post-doc at Harvard and Brigham and Woman's Hospital.

These are just some of the super stars I know. Most people have modes publications and they do just fine. The vast majority of people I know only have a handful of papers from their PhD, and while Nature/Science/JACS-equivalent are certainly possible for many people (at state schools and nosebleeds alike), it's really fairly rare.

Just my two cents...

 

[aldol16]

I have to strongly disagree. It's exceptional for even a faculty member to get a something like a Nature or JACS paper. I've work with many PI's and she doesn't even a paper higher than ChemMedChem and she has about three HUGE research grants, heads a NIH study section, and it pretty much set for the rest of her life.

Since you know JACS, I'll also say my previous grad student mentor highest paper was JOC (a couple of them; 10-15 pubs total) and a few others in that field and he's currently at a post-doc at Harvard and Brigham and Woman's Hospital.

These are just some of the super stars I know. Most people have modes publications and they do just fine. The vast majority of people I know only have a handful of papers from their PhD, and while Nature/Science/JACS-equivalent are certainly possible for many people (at state schools and nosebleeds alike), it's really fairly rare.

Just my two cents...

Nature, yes. JACS, not really. Don't get me wrong - JACS is super competitive. A couple of my papers from my PhD work were rejected from them (but ultimately accepted at Angewandte!). But any chemistry faculty worth their salt will publish in JACS at least once every few years. The exception is if you're in a very niche field in which your research wouldn't interest the broad readership of JACS. You can still be really well known because in that case, you're likely to be a pioneer in that field - it's just that your results aren't as fundamental to the field as JACS demands. You make up for it by being the pioneer of your field.

You can also make up for quality with quantity. 10-15 pubs total (how many first author?) is impressive for PhD work - especially if a large number of them were first-author. I would say 5-8 pubs with ~3 of them in JACS or Angewandte-quality journals are competitive for a successful chemistry graduate student wanting to pursue anything in academia. If you publish in Science or Nature, you need fewer publications.

Again, while JACS-quality publications may be rare in the entire PhD candidate pool, it's not rare for those PhDs going into academia. Some of them might make up for quality with quantity, but the majority still emphasize quality.

 

[sat0ri]

IF is so misleading though. If you publish in places like PNAS, you're still golden, even though the IF is around 10.

I looked up my the Nature subsidiary journal my friend published in and it is IF ~5. I guess that's not as impressive as I thought, but she still gets to slap the Nature name on her CV. The journal I'm in has a IF ~5 too, but unless you're in the field you've never heard of it. I guess that's the power of Nature though.

Just wanted wanted to say too that IF is extremely particular to field. For example, the top emergency medicine journal IF is about 4-5 (so a IF of 5 is tremendous in this context) while the top nanoscience journal has an IF of 30+ (so IF of 5 means something else in this context). Some fields are more likely to cite eachother than others.

 

[aldol16]

Just wanted wanted to say too that IF is extremely particular to field. For example, the top emergency medicine journal IF is about 4-5 (so a IF of 5 is tremendous in this context) while the top nanoscience journal has an IF of 30+ (so IF of 5 means something else in this context). Some fields are more likely to cite eachother than others.

It doesn't have anything to do with wanting to cite others or not. It has to do with what the hot topics are at the time. Nanoscience is "in" now and so there's a lot of work going on right now in that field. Lots of work = more citations. Remember that citation counts aren't normalized by how hot the field is. PIs redirect lab efforts into hot fields because that's where the money is and PIs need the grant funding.

 

[sat0ri]

Nature, yes. JACS, not really. Don't get me wrong - JACS is super competitive. A couple of my papers from my PhD work were rejected from them (but ultimately accepted at Angewandte!). But any chemistry faculty worth their salt will publish in JACS at least once every few years. The exception is if you're in a very niche field in which your research wouldn't interest the broad readership of JACS. You can still be really well known because in that case, you're likely to be a pioneer in that field - it's just that your results aren't as fundamental to the field as JACS demands. You make up for it by being the pioneer of your field.

You can also make up for quality with quantity. 10-15 pubs total (how many first author?) is impressive for PhD work - especially if a large number of them were first-author. I would say 5-8 pubs with ~3 of them in JACS or Angewandte-quality journals are competitive for a successful chemistry graduate student wanting to pursue anything in academia. If you publish in Science or Nature, you need fewer publications.

Again, while JACS-quality publications may be rare in the entire PhD candidate pool, it's not rare for those PhDs going into academia. Some of them might make up for quality with quantity, but the majority still emphasize quality.

For one, JACS typically publishes total syntheses (obviously not exclusively). A friend of mine got rejected from Phil Baran directly and it basically said submit when you have a total synthesis--but the chemisty was certainly compelling as it was published in Angewandte later.

Again, it's outrageous to say multiple JACS papers is required for academia. For top teir schools--without a doubt and even that might not be enough. To get just any job in academia--absolutely not a requirement based on pretty much every professor I know. A previous postdoc only had 4 papers and got a position as faculty just this past month. I'm from a state school so I see a lot more middle of bell curve professors but I'll be going to a top 3 soon. I'm guessing your experiences are based on going to a good school for you PhD? That's my only guess because this seems incredibly inflated to me. Granted the people I know at Harvard and Johns Hopkins (she only had 3 papers) are only post-docs right now, but all the faculty (including my current tenured professor) do not have anything close to that.

I think it's more about quality of you work, and taking branding as a proxy for this is problematic on occasion.

 

[efle]

IF is so misleading though. If you publish in places like PNAS, you're still golden, even though the IF is around 10.

I looked up my the Nature subsidiary journal my friend published in and it is IF ~5. I guess that's not as impressive as I thought, but she still gets to slap the Nature name on her CV. The journal I'm in has a IF ~5 too, but unless you're in the field you've never heard of it. I guess that's the power of Nature though.

I don't think the name will carry that much weight if it is some kind of extremely niche one, even largely academia-ignorant people like myself are aware that the category matters, being relatively high up the totem pole in Chem or Neuro >> disease primers.

Or, as some on here would have you believe, **** on paper that just anybody can submit 😉

Dunno if this is reference to the other thread we disagreed in, but story time now. We wrapped up a project during my gap year and they decided to submit it to one of the top couple journals in the field (specialty within IM). It could go either way, they figured, but worth doing because this particular issue was highlighting patient reported outcomes and that's what our project was about too!

I didn't tell schools about it because it was only submitted. It got rejected. I dunno if you would have played your cards differently in my shoes, but I'm sure glad I didn't send a letter updating schools about how I was on something trying to get into [good journal]

 

[sat0ri]

It doesn't have anything to do with wanting to cite others or not. It has to do with what the hot topics are at the time. Nanoscience is "in" now and so there's a lot of work going on right now in that field. Lots of work = more citations. Remember that citation counts aren't normalized by how hot the field is. PIs redirect lab efforts into hot fields because that's where the money is and PIs need the grant funding.

Yes it certainly does have to do with the fields--but yes it also has to do with what's popular as well (obviously). But some fields move slower than others in general... What are you even talking about???

 

[sat0ri]

"

It doesn't have anything to do with wanting to cite others or not. It has to do with what the hot topics are at the time. Nanoscience is "in" now and so there's a lot of work going on right now in that field. Lots of work = more citations. Remember that citation counts aren't normalized by how hot the field is. PIs redirect lab efforts into hot fields because that's where the money is and PIs need the grant funding.

I don't have time for a full response so I'll just have to copy and paste from wikipedia (unfortunately) but I'll come back later.

"
Validity as a measure of importance
It has been stated that impact factors and citation analysis in general are affected by field-dependent factors[19] which may invalidate comparisons not only across disciplines but even within different fields of research of one discipline.[20] The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication also varies highly among disciplines from 1–3% in the mathematical and physical sciences to 5–8% in the biological sciences.[21] Thus impact factors cannot be used to compare journals across disciplines."

 

[Gilakend]

@LizzyM @Goro @efle
How would you say a first author pub with accepted funding impacts an otherwise average app in regards to volunteering, GPA, and MCAT. I feel like the schools you would be competitive for might not value research too much and the top schools that would love your pub wouldn't like your average MCAT. Would you say in general it is very valuable across the board or just a cool factor? Curious to hear your thoughts.

 

[aldol16]

For one, JACS typically publishes total syntheses (obviously not exclusively). A friend of mine got rejected from Phil Baran directly and it basically said submit when you have a total synthesis--but the chemisty was certainly compelling as it was published in Angewandte later.

Again, it's outrageous to say multiple JACS papers is required for academia. For top teir schools--without a doubt and even that might not be enough. To get just any job in academia--absolutely not a requirement based on pretty much every professor I know. A previous postdoc only had 4 papers and got a position as faculty just this past month. I'm from a state school so I see a lot more middle of bell curve professors but I'll be going to a top 3 soon. I'm guessing your experiences are based on going to a good school for you PhD? That's my only guess because this seems incredibly inflated to me. Granted the people I know at Harvard and Johns Hopkins (she only had 3 papers) are only post-docs right now, but all the faculty (including my current tenured professor) do not have anything close to that.

I think it's more about quality of you work, and taking branding as a proxy for this is problematic on occasion.

If you think JACS typically publishes total syntheses, I really don't think you know what JACS publishes at all or you don't understand what's classified as total synthesis. JACS is a generalized, full-field journal. It publishes everything from structural biochem to catalysis to physical organic chemistry to materials science to synthesis. There is no unique emphasis on total synthesis. The unifying theme is that each work should contain results that are broadly applicable to the field and of interest to most of the readership (I don't know if you've ever seen the forms reviewers have to fill out but these are two criteria - the others are scientific validity and something else I don't remember off-hand). If you don't believe me, take a look at the current issue: http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jacsat/current. Not a single total synthesis paper from my cursory glance.

If your friend got rejected from Phil Baran directly (who I presume was the associate editor assigned to the paper), then I presume there was something wrong with the work or it was a total synthesis that wasn't complete. Editors don't reject papers all that often before sending out for review unless there's something obviously or egregiously wrong with them. At least not for JACS.

I think it's outrageous for someone who worked in a lab for a few years at the bachelor's level to presume to understand academia. I spent years in this field thinking long and hard about how to secure a tenure-track faculty position. I did go to a good school for my PhD and I am most familiar with getting faculty positions at the top private as well as top public universities. I have a few colleagues who went to mid-tier schools for faculty positions as well. Perhaps your professors did not go through the current labor marketplace. It's insane compared to 5 or even 10 years ago. Too many PhDs are graduating. The top students from the top groups will go on to the top schools as faculty. The good-to-mediocre students from the top groups (who still have first-author pubs in good journals) trickle down to the state schools or go into industry. When a faculty position has 300-400 applicants, it can afford to choose the candidates that have been the most productive and have published in the best journals. That's the best indicator of the candidate's success as a PI. A job at my institution opened up last year and there were indeed 400 applicants for it. The search committee interviewed 20 applicants for the job and they all had impeccable credentials. I counted not one without at least a first-author JACS pub. The one who was hired had multiple publications in Nature/Science from their PhD as well as post-doc days. My colleagues at mid-tier institutions have similar experiences.

I know all this because I did give serious thought to applying to faculty positions before deciding on medical school. While I obviously wanted to end up at a top-tier school, I also looked a mid-tier schools. The implicit requirements are simply too stringent. Too many qualified applicants. You think medical school admissions is hard - try securing a tenure-track faculty position.

 

[aldol16]

Yes it certainly does have to do with the fields--but yes it also has to do with what's popular as well (obviously). But some fields move slower than others in general... What are you even talking about???

Your statement was that some fields are likely to cite each other more than others. I'm saying that this isn't true. If you think this accounts for the wide variations in IFs across fields, then you know much less about research than you think. Nanotech is the hot topic right now so obviously there will be more work going on. More work going on = more papers = more citations going on in the field. That's why something like nanotech has journals with high IFs but emergency medicine does not.

It has been stated that impact factors and citation analysis in general are affected by field-dependent factors[19] which may invalidate comparisons not only across disciplines but even within different fields of research of one discipline.[20] The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication also varies highly among disciplines from 1–3% in the mathematical and physical sciences to 5–8% in the biological sciences.[21] Thus impact factors cannot be used to compare journals across disciplines."

Not sure what this quotation was supposed to support.

 

[efle]

@LizzyM @Goro @efle
How would you say a first author pub with accepted funding impacts an otherwise average app in regards to volunteering, GPA, and MCAT. I feel like the schools you would be competitive for might not value research too much and the top schools that would love your pub wouldn't like your average MCAT. Would you say in general it is very valuable across the board or just a cool factor? Curious to hear your thoughts.

I'm no expert, but I would predict the same as you, having something like a 3.7/509 means you are unlikely to get interviews from the top schools even with the kind of research background that they like. No idea what to expect elsewhere.

 

[aldol16]

Dunno if this is reference to the other thread we disagreed in, but story time now. We wrapped up a project during my gap year and they decided to submit it to one of the top couple journals in the field (specialty within IM). It could go either way, they figured, but worth doing because this particular issue was highlighting patient reported outcomes and that's what our project was about too!

I didn't tell schools about it because it was only submitted. It got rejected. I dunno if you would have played your cards differently in my shoes, but I'm sure glad I didn't send a letter updating schools about how I was on something trying to get into [good journal]

I don't know if it was you but some people on here like to say that submitting a paper means absolutely nothing because anybody could submit anything to a journal. Some have used the example of, I'm paraphrasing here, doodling on a paper and sending it to Nature. In practice, complete **** like that doesn't get submitted to journals. Unless your paper was like that - if so, I stand corrected. But 99.9% (I'd say 100% but I can't say that nobody at any point in time has tried to submit a blank page of paper to Nature) of the papers submitted to those journals represent a significant body of scientific work. There might be flaws to that work but it's a work nonetheless. It's more advanced than the project stage but less finished than the publication stage. Papers get rejected for any number of reasons. One of them is that it's good science but just not broadly applicable to the field the journal caters to. Or doesn't broadly interest the readership of the journal. It's still good science. So I still think it's worth mentioning that you submitted a paper to X journal. If it comes back rejected, you can say that you're working on revisions to submit to another journal (or not mention it at all).

 

[efle]

While I feel competitive for a lot of research heavy programs, I fall into the 10-25th percentiles for average accepted MCAT scores for top 10 places. I always assume those spots were more for people with incredible stories, e.g. "built orphanages in Africa through after founding a tech start-up that's worth millions now." I think what's keeping me from applying to those places is my psych/soc score is occasionally outside their 10th even (scored 127).

What is your score and GPA? The class isn't 25% full of self-made millionaires, I promise. If you GPA is high and your MCAT is just a few points below median, totally possible that you can sell yourself on the research enough to net interviews.

 

[efle]

I don't know if it was you but some people on here like to say that submitting a paper means absolutely nothing because anybody could submit anything to a journal. Some have used the example of, I'm paraphrasing here, doodling on a paper and sending it to Nature. In practice, complete **** like that doesn't get submitted to journals. Unless your paper was like that - if so, I stand corrected. But 99.9% (I'd say 100% but I can't say that nobody at any point in time has tried to submit a blank page of paper to Nature) of the papers submitted to those journals represent a significant body of scientific work. There might be flaws to that work but it's a work nonetheless. It's more advanced than the project stage but less finished than the publication stage. Papers get rejected for any number of reasons. One of them is that it's good science but just not broadly applicable to the field the journal caters to. Or doesn't broadly interest the readership of the journal. It's still good science. So I still think it's worth mentioning that you submitted a paper to X journal. If it comes back rejected, you can say that you're working on revisions to submit to another journal (or not mention it at all).

I agree about most submitted papers still representing a valuable body of work. I just disagree about saying where you've submitted it before at least hearing it's approved pending revisions. Just feels disingenuous to say yeah, we submitted to the Nature division in our field, knowing full well that it likely will end up in the sister journal with 1/4th the audience.

 

[efle]

3.81, 514 (130, 127, 130, 127). Mainly hoping I'm competitive for places like Pitt, Duke, Case, and Michigan.

I think you will do fine with a lot of the research powerhouses! Maybe not the WashU and Vandy and U Chicago type places that notoriously emphasize MCAT, but for most you're only 1-3 points shy of the median

 

[aldol16]

I agree about most submitted papers still representing a valuable body of work. I just disagree about saying where you've submitted it before at least hearing it's approved pending revisions. Just feels disingenuous to say yeah, we submitted to the Nature division in our field, knowing full well that it likely will end up in the sister journal with 1/4th the audience.

I understand that, but it comes off strange (at least to me) to say, "We submitted a paper entitled 'Y'," without saying where you submitted it to as well. Anybody who knows research at all should understand that a submitted paper can be rejected from that journal. I don't think anybody pays serious attention to the journal name when you say, "We submitted a paper entitled 'Y' to Nature." What's important is that you submitted a paper, which represents a significant body of complete scientific work.

 

[Goro]

@LizzyM @Goro @efle
How would you say a first author pub with accepted funding impacts an otherwise average app in regards to volunteering, GPA, and MCAT. I feel like the schools you would be competitive for might not value research too much and the top schools that would love your pub wouldn't like your average MCAT. Would you say in general it is very valuable across the board or just a cool factor? Curious to hear your thoughts.

I think that my learned colleague @LizzyM is better able to answer this because being at a DO school, we value things other than research.

One should always avoid trying to place too much emphasis on a single metric.

 

[Goro]

3.81, 514 (130, 127, 130, 127). Mainly hoping I'm competitive for places like Pitt, Duke, Case, and Michigan.

You're competitive for all of the above except U MI.

 

[Goro]

Why not Michigan? I have family who lives 20 min from Anne Harbor so I thought it was worth a shot.

It's one of the most competitive state MD schools aside from the UC's. Put it on the list if you are a MI native. If not, one has to be > avg for OOS state schools.

 

[efle]

Why not Michigan? I have family who lives 20 min from Anne Harbor so I thought it was worth a shot.

It's one of the most competitive state MD schools aside from the UC's. Put it on the list if you are a MI native. If not, one has to be > avg for OOS state schools.

I think they might be one of the state programs without instate favoritism in their mission though. MSAR says about 70% of interviews and 50% of matriculants are out-of-state. I'd probably apply!

 

[Goro]

I think they might be one of the state programs without instate favoritism in their mission though. MSAR says about 70% of interviews and 50% of matriculants are out-of-state. I'd probably apply!

Go for it, OP.

 

[Endoxifen]

I think they might be one of the state programs without instate favoritism in their mission though. MSAR says about 70% of interviews and 50% of matriculants are out-of-state. I'd probably apply!

I don't know about the com, but UofM has a carter that says that if they dont receive a set amount of funding from the state, they can make up the deficit by admitting more oos students.

 

[Tigriski]

What about research through summer programs, like Amgen, in addition to research at a home institution? The max, hours you could get in a program like this is around 400 hrs. (40 hrs a week for 10 weeks). Getting a publication is hard in this amount of time, obviously. But as a member of one of these labs/programs you get full attention form PI and of academia (generally speaking, people make time for you because the time you have at that institution is limited) so the experience is different than everyday-semester grunt work. Plus acceptance rates into top summer research is really really low, like less than 1%--a **** shoot, really.

These programs also have national presentations, posters etc. Since they aren't pubs do they even mean anything?

I dont really know how these research components are viewed. Any comments on this?

 

[aldol16]

What about research through summer programs, like Amgen, in addition to research at a home institution? The max, hours you could get in a program like this is around 400 hrs. (40 hrs a week for 10 weeks). Getting a publication is hard in this amount of time, obviously. But as a member of one of these labs/programs you get full attention form PI and of academia (generally speaking, people make time for you because the time you have at that institution is limited) so the experience is different than everyday-semester grunt work. Plus acceptance rates into top summer research is really really low, like less than 1%--a **** shoot, really.

These programs also have national presentations, posters etc. Since they aren't pubs do they even mean anything?

An intensive, longitudinal experience with demonstrated evidence of productivity trumps "prestigious" programs any day. These programs are "competitive" only in the sense that there are many pre-meds vying for a few funded spots. They're not some magic ride that will get you in the door to medical school. Those programs also don't give you the dedicated PI time you're talking about. PI time is limited and even us graduate students and post-docs don't get a lot of it. They spend their time writing grant proposals, doing peer review, traveling to talk about our research, attending conferences, and reading the literature. Younger PIs will work in the lab but they will have many projects going on. Management and training of undergraduates is usually relegated to the graduate students and post-docs.

Any national presentation/poster is worthy of mention, but getting a poster at a national conference for professionals in your field is much better than an undergraduate research symposium. But all worthy of mention.

 

[efle]

What about research through summer programs, like Amgen, in addition to research at a home institution? The max, hours you could get in a program like this is around 400 hrs. (40 hrs a week for 10 weeks). Getting a publication is hard in this amount of time, obviously. But as a member of one of these labs/programs you get full attention form PI and of academia (generally speaking, people make time for you because the time you have at that institution is limited) so the experience is different than everyday-semester grunt work. Plus acceptance rates into top summer research is really really low, like less than 1%--a **** shoot, really.

These programs also have national presentations, posters etc. Since they aren't pubs do they even mean anything?

I dont really know how these research components are viewed. Any comments on this?

The major national summer programs like Amgen that come with stipend look good, but as you've said, it's hard to get as much done in a summer as you can do across multiple summers + semesters. Posters are evidence of productivity but aren't at the same level as pubs. I think it would be tough to sell yourself as a future academic just based on doing one of these summer programs, though I think most people that win the seats have prior experience.

 

[Tigriski]

Those programs also don't give you the dedicated PI time you're talking about. PI time is limited and even us graduate students and post-docs don't get a lot of it. They spend their time writing grant proposals, doing peer review, traveling to talk about our research, attending conferences, and reading the literature.

As a student that has done two of these programs, I can say I got the kind of intensive time I mentioned. PIs have to show interest in these programs and taking on a summer student (They also get some funding through the program which is usually NSF or NIH funded) so they must be simply saying "I have time for this, give me a student." I didn't mean full attention like show a kid some techniques; any scientific writing help or paper coverage they will assist in any way possible. I'm not sure if this is "special" but I don't think many undergrads are given papers by their PI and/or asked to produce a paper of their own.

 

[aldol16]

As a student that has done two of these programs, I can say I got the kind of intensive time I mentioned. PIs have to show interest in these programs and taking on a summer student (They also get some funding through the program which is usually NSF or NIH funded) so they must be simply saying "I have time for this, give me a student." I didn't mean full attention like show a kid some techniques; any scientific writing help or paper coverage they will assist in any way possible. I'm not sure if this is "special" but I don't think many undergrads are given papers by their PI and/or asked to produce a paper of their own.

As a post-doc who has mentored several students like yourself, I can say it is not typical of PIs to give undergraduate students the kind of intensive attention you mention. That falls upon us. In a basic science disciplines, it is next to impossible to come up with a project, carry it through, and get a paper out of it in a few months. It's next to impossible for even graduate students and us post-docs. Projects take much longer to develop and carry through to completion. The most likely scenario in which an undergraduate gets a paper out of a summer experience in a basic science research lab is if he or she works on an established project with a graduate student or post-doc and is listed as an author when the project is complete. If you're lucky, you get in at the tail end of it and get published soon after the program ends. If you're luckier, you get in at the beginning and make significant progress during your program but don't see the project completed and published until much later. The upside of that is that you likely will get a better authorship slot since you contributed more, intellectually, to the project.

 

[Dox4lyfe]

@liquidcrawler Just curious, how'd you accumulate 3000 hours of research? I'm trying to fit in research whenever I can and I'll have ~1000-1200 hrs max.