Average Publications of Successful Applicants

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This is a good thing. One should know the target audience you're aiming for. For example, do you go for anatomists, or anthropologists? they overlap, but they're not identical.

I knew of one kid who graduate with his PhD with like 30 pubs because every time he wrote a paper he had a journal in mind as he wrote it.

I think he actually was a biological anthropologist who did it. He was the friend of my bio anth professor. But yes, each paper was insanely targeted.

He even did all his citations using whichever one the journal he was going for was. Annoyed some of his professors who didn't understand what he was doing, but he would literally submit his article right after he submitted it to the class.

That guy remains my hero. Needless to say with his publications, he did land a decent Tenure Track position. 🙂 He inspired me to look at some of my past term papers and submit them which I did.

 

[vantheman]

Its nice to finally realize that many people on SDN are not the average applicant. I have caught myself feeling like a failure since I don't have a publication... Even though I have done 4 semesters of undegrad research and 1 year full time research at a top university for a pretty well distinguished professor of medicine. Its like oh hey, I can actually be kinda proud of myself? nice.

 

[T1p]

FWIW. I am a reapplicant but will be attending a top 20 coming fall. In my first application cycle, I had 1 first-author publication and 2 podium presentations. Was ultimately rejected due to lack of clinical experience.

In my second application cycle (I reapplied immediately), I added another first-author, 2 3rd-author, and 1 4th-author. Three additional 3rd-author publications are also in review (revisions and re-review, one is also a technical paper) . Also had several abstracts accepted for posters.

I believe the additional research publication was not the reason why I was accepted the second time. Rather it was the strong research letters provided by my PIs and additional clinical activities that helped me.

 

[chemist16]

Thanks again, everyone, for your input.

Thank you for the very enlightening discussion on basic statistical theory.

Why are you so worried about this? Are you suddenly going to work orders of magnitude harder to get more publications based on what you "learn" here? It's a bit of a moot point and a complete waste of time and effort IMO.

I'm not worried about this at all. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. I created this thread to address three questions for myself: 1) How representative is the average SDN profile one reads on here? and 2) What does the average successful applicant look like in terms of research/publication? I'm also sorry if you didn't get anything from it, but I certainly did. I hope it'll also serve as a source of information to future pre-meds who read SDN and suddenly feel inadequate/behind.

 

[Conflagration]

I'm not sure if you were asking me or just asking but there is absolutely no reason to compare yourself to me, the only reason I responded was to illustrate the fact that even if you took an "average number of publications" statistic like OP mentioned it would still be highly unrepresentative because you have people like me--called NON-TRADITIONAL for a reason--who are skewing the results. Apples and oranges.

I honestly have no idea how much presentations "count" but any tangible result you can show from your research, like a presentation, is surely a plus compared to those who did research and have nothing (tangible) to show for it.

Not even comparing my work to yours- but that's impressive. Good luck to you in your cycle. 🙂

 

[Gandyy]

Its nice to finally realize that many people on SDN are not the average applicant. I have caught myself feeling like a failure since I don't have a publication... Even though I have done 4 semesters of undegrad research and 1 year full time research at a top university for a pretty well distinguished professor of medicine. Its like oh hey, I can actually be kinda proud of myself? nice.

I still usually feel pretty bad haha

 

[mimelim]

My department kept dumping students on me, I have 6 now, 2 medical students and 4 pre-meds. We have submitted 8 manuscripts since they started. Everyone started June 1st, considering that virtually my entire department including myself was at SVS for a week, I'd say doing pretty well. I'd conservatively like each of them to have their names on 3 things by the end of the summer. Gogo clinical outcomes research!

Things that are making this summer productive...
#1 They all work hard, most average 10-12 hours at the hospital every day and every single one of them reads on their own/works at home.
#2 They are all relatively high skill, two have advanced programming skills, two are engineers, all are strong writers.
#3 We have two residents who have a strong background in informatics
#4 We had a couple dozen projects at varying levels of completion ready to rock and roll when they showed up.
#5 We are well organized and a ton of clinical residents that are more than happy to mentor/edit student product.


I have no idea why more people don't do this. I presented at virtually every major conference this past year. People care about outcomes research and the projects don't take very long to setup and execute. The fun part is going to be in a year or two when the prospective studies we started a couple months ago are dumping data at us.

 

[northernlights15]

My department kept dumping students on me, I have 6 now, 2 medical students and 4 pre-meds. We have submitted 8 manuscripts since they started. Everyone started June 1st, considering that virtually my entire department including myself was at SVS for a week, I'd say doing pretty well. I'd conservatively like each of them to have their names on 3 things by the end of the summer. Gogo clinical outcomes research!

Things that are making this summer productive...
#1 They all work hard, most average 10-12 hours at the hospital every day and every single one of them reads on their own/works at home.
#2 They are all relatively high skill, two have advanced programming skills, two are engineers, all are strong writers.
#3 We have two residents who have a strong background in informatics
#4 We had a couple dozen projects at varying levels of completion ready to rock and roll when they showed up.
#5 We are well organized and a ton of clinical residents that are more than happy to mentor/edit student product.


I have no idea why more people don't do this. I presented at virtually every major conference this past year. People care about outcomes research and the projects don't take very long to setup and execute. The fun part is going to be in a year or two when the prospective studies we started a couple months ago are dumping data at us.

That's insane! But there are so many things that can go wrong and it takes a lot of trial and error. So many things are out of our control as well.

By the way, sort of off topic, but how'd you get your name on Nature paper as an undergrad?

 

[mimelim]

That's insane! But there are so many things that can go wrong and it takes a lot of trial and error. So many things are out of our control as well.

By the way, sort of off topic, but how'd you get your name on Nature paper as an undergrad?

We don't have the same 'trial and error' that most basic science labs have. For the most part, we publish the positive and the negative results. The things that we do well, we do in very large numbers and thus, most people want to hear about our experience with particular procedures and patient population. And yes, the biggest thing out of a student's control is mentorship. The earlier you find a strong, invested mentor, the earlier things will take off.

Regarding my publications. Hard work, long hours, good mentor, and of course a little bit of luck. I tell every student that I can... Everything in life depends on a little bit of luck, but if you look, for some reason the good people put themselves in a position to get lucky.

 

[NickNaylor]

We don't have the same 'trial and error' that most basic science labs have. For the most part, we publish the positive and the negative results. The things that we do well, we do in very large numbers and thus, most people want to hear about our experience with particular procedures and patient population. And yes, the biggest thing out of a student's control is mentorship. The earlier you find a strong, invested mentor, the earlier things will take off.

Regarding my publications. Hard work, long hours, good mentor, and of course a little bit of luck. I tell every student that I can... Everything in life depends on a little bit of luck, but if you look, for some reason the good people put themselves in a position to get lucky.

Indeed - if you don't take some initiative, you will never have the opportunity to get lucky.

 

[WedgeDawg]

We don't have the same 'trial and error' that most basic science labs have. For the most part, we publish the positive and the negative results. The things that we do well, we do in very large numbers and thus, most people want to hear about our experience with particular procedures and patient population. And yes, the biggest thing out of a student's control is mentorship. The earlier you find a strong, invested mentor, the earlier things will take off.

Regarding my publications. Hard work, long hours, good mentor, and of course a little bit of luck. I tell every student that I can... Everything in life depends on a little bit of luck, but if you look, for some reason the good people put themselves in a position to get lucky.

Your posts are one of the main reasons I browse SDN.

 

[screenjunkie]

I just finished my first undergrad year, and have 2 pubs (1st author, 6th author)+2 currently in the works (2nd author, 5th author), and 2 nat'l poster presentations. But I've been gunning from day one, and will be graduating from a HYPSM a year early; thus putting me far closer to the distorted SDN stats distribution than the normal med school applicant pool. N=1, once again of course.

 

[surgeonhands2213]

I have 9 pubs, 13 abstracts. I post this to emphasize that it did not help me overcome my average stats during the app cycle. I'm lucky that I got into the schools I did but in no way did it make up for my numbers (barely even discussed research at most places). Point is, if your numbers are strong and you have some research experience a pub doesn't matter and don't assume being a publication machine will make up for lower stats.

 

[medbunny56]

It is uncommon for an applicant to have a publication (even in CA).

how much can first author publications help for those applying to CA schools? after we pass the secondary screening

 

[DameJulie]

how much can first author publications help for those applying to CA schools? after we pass the secondary screening

IMO, first-author pub is only significantly helpful if you are applying to research-intensive school, but publication in any authorship would add on to your competitiveness. I know people who are admitted to CA schools with publications with non first-authorship.

My follow up question is: which sceneario is more favorable for adcom: ONE first-author publication, or a few mid-author publications?