Getting published

[sinfin]

How much does coauthoring in a publication help with admissions? Does it make a good application look very good and an average application look good?

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[Dr.LeoSpaceman]

How much does coauthoring in a publication help with admissions? Does it make a good application look very good and an average application look good?

THis has been talked about a lot, so go back and look for some older threads. In general, though, I think the consensus is that it will solidify a good application, but if you have low GPA/MCAT, its not going to make up for that. This is simply because being published can be a rather random thing sometime...some people (including myself) have been working on projects for a long time and still are not published. Others, though, might get lucky and jump into a project where they will be published in less than a year. There are way too many variables (including the lab you work in, the type of research you do, etc) to make being published an earth shattering event (unless you lead author a paper in nature or science).

 

[(Dirty Version)]

it does not help at all. in fact it hurts you.

 

[Anka]

Publish one paper, maybe it's luck. Publish three or four, and they'll know it's you. Also helps if they're from different labs. Probably most impressive is if you crank out one first-authored paper a year, each one in a different discipline. Make sure one of them is in Marxist literary theory or somesuch to be well-rounded, though.

Anka

 

[g3pro]

Touche

 

[Datrix]

How much does coauthoring in a publication help with admissions? Does it make a good application look very good and an average application look good?

I feel that it's more important to get something meaningful out of your research rather than getting your name published. For instance, that research takes a lot of deligence and patience to carry your experiments out. As long as you can convey the qualities and values you gained from your research to the ad coms I feel that it will work out in your favor. I didn't have any papers published and I managed to get into medical school this year so don't worry too much about not getting published

 

[soreed]

Publish one paper, maybe it's luck. Publish three or four, and they'll know it's you. Also helps if they're from different labs. Probably most impressive is if you crank out one first-authored paper a year, each one in a different discipline. Make sure one of them is in Marxist literary theory or somesuch to be well-rounded, though.

Anka

i'm on it