Better journal vs quicker turnaround time

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[Stuck on CCL2]

I'm hoping to get some advice on submitting/hopefully publishing a paper during the MD/PhD application cycle.

I'm working on a paper and am trying to decide where to submit it. I narrowed it down to two journals, with an IF difference of about 2. My mentor said I could submit it to either, but he sounded more confident with the lower IF journal.

Is getting a paper accepted/published during the application cycle/before interviews worth submitting to the lower IF journal? It sounds like a safer bet to get accepted and avoid delays, but if it doesn't matter too much for admissions I might try for the higher IF journal.

I guess I would say it depends on if you already have publications. If you already have a couple, why not go for the higher impact journal. If you don't have any, or maybe 1 in a low impact journal, I'd shoot for the quicker turnaround.

 

[sciencemark]

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[Stuck on CCL2]

I've got a couple 3rd to 4th author ones in "mid-to-low" (depending on how you define that), but no 1st author pubs.

I got one high impact first author paper after my interviews and got accepted to one MD/PhD program this cycle but I only applied with a couple 2nd/3rd author papers in mid and low impact journals. In this situation, you may have some leeway to submit at the higher impact journal and just update the schools when/if it gets accepted, since you already have proof of substantial (enough) research.