How do adoms view low tier journals?

[Si Se Puede]

Do schools count pubs not on pubmed as official publications? If not, could one theoretically publish low quality work in low tier journals and still appear to have a strong application research-wise? I think it is better to publish in a good journal like JBC once rather than 3-4 times in a journal people have not heard of, considering the same level of authorship.

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[GoPelicans]

I've been told that outside of MD/PhD, adcoms don't really care about the impact factor of the journal your work is published in. I think the protocol is to include the citation on your AMCAS - it's up to the adcom if they want to investigate the quality of the work after that, but I highly doubt they would take the time to do so.

 

[pyrrion89]

Most adcomms I've talked to say they care more about your involvement within the research team than about how prestigious the journal in which you published. If you were just doing pipette work and somehow became second author, that would not compare to the guy who became third author but had some say in designing the experiment and analyzing the data. Of course, the author order usually accounts for how much executive work you did, but not always.

Another way to put it is that they prefer someone who designed their own experiment and did all the creative and analytical work over someone who was ordered to do the manual labor, even if the manual labor kid got his work in Nature and the other kid in the Podunk Journal of Inconsequential Studies

 

[Mr Avante]

a journal is a journal,
... unless you publish in nature, cell, or tetrahedron.

 

[La Presse]

PNAS or bust. 😎

 

[Mr Avante]

PNAS or bust. 😎

Royal Academy of Science 😎

 

[CarlosDanger]

Publishing a first author in just about any journal would be very impressive, and obviously cell/science/nature would be on the level of completely out of control. Any other co-authorship (2nd, 3rd...and so on authorship) is probably going to be looked at about the same.

Your average adcom clinician or scientist may not even know the tier of your journal, everyone is really only used to journals in their own field. Clinical journals are completely different from molecular biology journals and within that you've got field specific journals...it goes on forever.

 

[Law2Doc]

Do schools count pubs not on pubmed as official publications? If not, could one theoretically publish low quality work in low tier journals and still appear to have a strong application research-wise? I think it is better to publish in a good journal like JBC once rather than 3-4 times in a journal people have not heard of, considering the same level of authorship.

Whether journal is big in the field/profession or not is not really the biggest inquiry, although obviously publishing in something like NEJM or JAMA would make you look like a superstar. The real question is whether the article was peer reviewed (meaning reviewers in the field read your article first before it was accepted and deemed it valuable enough to publish.) first or second author in a peer reviewed journal looks really good -- not so many undergrads will have this on their resume.

 

[LizzyM]

To me (n=1), the tiers are:

• Nature/Science/JAMA/New England Journal of Medicine
• Any journal available to a national audience
• a school's publications that exist to publish undergraduates' manuscripts

 

[Si Se Puede]

Hmm interesting...I have a fairly large project which we are aiming for JBC with but it could also be split into 2 or 3 smaller papers in a lower-tier journal; I think one paper in JBC would be better than just racking up pubs but that may not be how adcoms take it :/

 

[Law2Doc]

To me (n=1), the tiers are:

• Nature/Science/JAMA/New England Journal of Medicine
• Any journal available to a national audience
• a school's publications that exist to publish undergraduates' manuscripts

Again, to the extent a physician member of adcom is looking at things, "peer review" is going to be the threshold that matters. Nature/Science/JAMA/NEJM are great but most attendings rarely if ever get published in those, so it's really not expected for med student admissions, and likely doesn't happen enough to merit discussion. Most med schools will have zero students ever published in one of these. "Journals to a national audience" IMHO is too vague a category, and not too meaningful to a physician unless it's also peer reviewed. We put peer reviewed stuff in a separate section of our CV for a reason. I'd put school publications so far below this stuff to not really consider it in the same category. That's my two cents.

 

[Goro]

If I can't find it on Pubmed, I don't consider it real. i'll ask about it in interviews, however. I won't be impressed if it's a limited distribution journal like the "Journal of Kansas Prairie Studies", or a predatory journal that charge for e-pubs.

Do schools count pubs not on pubmed as official publications? If not, could one theoretically publish low quality work in low tier journals and still appear to have a strong application research-wise? I think it is better to publish in a good journal like JBC once rather than 3-4 times in a journal people have not heard of, considering the same level of authorship.

 

[LizzyM]

Great clarifications, guys.

Law2Doc, I have seen physician adcom members be impressed by an applicant who has published in one of the big journals. They mention it aloud whereas other journal's will not get a shout-out.

Goro and Law2Doc are correct. I should have said, peer-reviewed, national audience, available in Pubmed as defining that second category.

Si Se Puede, slicing the salami is frowned upon but if you get a first author publication on one slice, you win! 😀

 

[CarlosDanger]

Hmm interesting...I have a fairly large project which we are aiming for JBC with but it could also be split into 2 or 3 smaller papers in a lower-tier journal; I think one paper in JBC would be better than just racking up pubs but that may not be how adcoms take it :/

Just my opinion OP, I would go ahead and submit the complete project to JBC. I'm hoping to submit a paper there soon as well. There are a lot of other quality peer reviewed journals that have impact factors below JBC like Plos One, J. Cell Science, Biochemistry, etc, etc (and those are just general interest journals) - so I wouldn't worry about the quality necessarily, but I personally like it when authors try to tell a more complete story with one solid paper. I think its a better strategy and doesn't look like you're just splitting up your project for the sake of getting more papers. Good luck

 

[plumazul]

Again, to the extent a physician member of adcom is looking at things, "peer review" is going to be the threshold that matters. Nature/Science/JAMA/NEJM are great but most attendings rarely if ever get published in those, so it's really not expected for med student admissions, and likely doesn't happen enough to merit discussion. Most med schools will have zero students ever published in one of these. "Journals to a national audience" IMHO is too vague a category, and not too meaningful to a physician unless it's also peer reviewed. We put peer reviewed stuff in a separate section of our CV for a reason. I'd put school publications so far below this stuff to not really consider it in the same category. That's my two cents.

There is such a thing as a peer reviewed school publication. The journal at my university (I am a managing editor) exists to prepare future scientist for the publication process. It is our raison d'être. To this end, every submitted paper is subjected to a thorough review process. We work hard to find expert faculty volunteers in every field within the scope of our publication. We do not just accept every submitted paper and some are cycled several times before approval. We are proud of our publication and I'm sorry to hear that some people may not be aware of what we are trying to do.

 

[mcloaf]

There is such a thing as a peer reviewed school publication. The journal at my university (I am a managing editor) exists to prepare future scientist for the publication process. It is our raison d'être. To this end, every submitted paper is subjected to a thorough review process. We work hard to find expert faculty volunteers in every field within the scope of our publication. We do not just accept every submitted paper and some are cycled several times before approval. We are proud of our publication and I'm sorry to hear that some people may not be aware of what we are trying to do.

Are you on pubmed?

 

[Goro]

Just a further clarification. The are peer reviewed low-tier, low impact factor journals, like, say, with an impact factor of around 1. There are plenty in PubMed. Getting into any one of these is fine. Not everyone is going to get a Nature paper, much less any publication from student research, so publising in one of these is fine by me.

Great clarifications, guys.

Law2Doc, I have seen physician adcom members be impressed by an applicant who has published in one of the big journals. They mention it aloud whereas other journal's will not get a shout-out.

Goro and Law2Doc are correct. I should have said, peer-reviewed, national audience, available in Pubmed as defining that second category.

Si Se Puede, slicing the salami is frowned upon but if you get a first author publication on one slice, you win! 😀

 

[Espadaleader]

I'm surprised American Journal of Public Health and Circulation are not on LizzyM's top tier. Basic science gets all the glory lol.

 

[LizzyM]

I'm surprised American Journal of Public Health and Circulation are not on LizzyM's top tier. Basic science gets all the glory lol.

I'm only counting the ones that are so widely circulated that my big city public library has a subscription. JAMA and NEJM are not basic science.

 

[Mr Avante]

I'm surprised American Journal of Public Health and Circulation are not on LizzyM's top tier. Basic science gets all the glory lol.

I'm only counting the ones that are so widely circulated that my big city public library has a subscription. JAMA and NEJM are not basic science.

I love NEJM; so much pimping material.

 

[Doodledog]

To me (n=1), the tiers are:

• Nature/Science/JAMA/New England Journal of Medicine
• Any journal available to a national audience
• a school's publications that exist to publish undergraduates' manuscripts

Most would add JCI to the first tier although it might not be found in a public library. Many would add Lancet, although some consider them to be out for fame more than science.😛

I would identify a second tier that is the leading journal in an given field. These are generally well-known both in basic and clinical science and because they publish more within any area than the big 4 (or 5 or 6), the clinically oriented ones (e.g. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism) often have more of an impact on both patient care and scientific research direction in any field than the big ones. Some of these are well-known to most, others are better known only within the field.

Of course, none of this is relevant as noted to the OP. Getting yourself published is itself of value and if it's in a journal listed in pubmed, all the better. Being able to explain the importance of the research, why you participated in it, and what you did in the research environment is more important than any of that.

The only med school applicants I've even seen with a first authored paper in the big 4 (or 5 or 6) also had PhD's, R01s and a lab before they started in med school (n=2).

 

[DrOneDay7]

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[Law2Doc]

Just a further clarification. The are peer reviewed low-tier, low impact factor journals, like, say, with an impact factor of around 1. There are plenty in PubMed. Getting into any one of these is fine. Not everyone is going to get a Nature paper, much less any publication from student research, so publising in one of these is fine by me.

Exactly.

 

[Law2Doc]

There is such a thing as a peer reviewed school publication. The journal at my university (I am a managing editor) exists to prepare future scientist for the publication process. It is our raison d'être. To this end, every submitted paper is subjected to a thorough review process. We work hard to find expert faculty volunteers in every field within the scope of our publication. We do not just accept every submitted paper and some are cycled several times before approval. We are proud of our publication and I'm sorry to hear that some people may not be aware of what we are trying to do.

If it's peer reviewed and on pub med it goes in one pile of accomplishments. If it's an article in an exclusively on campus school publication or a journal just for school students and alumni etc, it goes in another.

 

[Law2Doc]

Great clarifications, guys.

Law2Doc, I have seen physician adcom members be impressed by an applicant who has published in one of the big journals. They mention it aloud whereas other journal's will not get a shout-out....

I would be impressed too but at many med schools they will go years between seeing a student with this kind of stat (eg first author in a Nature article), so I wouldn't play up the importance of this too much. We also would be impressed if you had a bronze star medal or a SuperBowl ring, but I wouldn't fret if you don't have those either.

 

[LizzyM]

I would be impressed too but at many med schools they will go years between seeing a student with this kind of stat (eg first author in a Nature article), so I wouldn't play up the importance of this too much. We also would be impressed if you had a bronze star medal or a SuperBowl ring, but I wouldn't fret if you don't have those either.

Well said.

 

[DrOneDay7]

What about a paper published in the annual proceedings journal of a national research conference I presented at??

It's available for anyone to read free of charge; I'm the first and only author, and it was peer-reviewed by a committee, as I had to make changes and resubmit before it was accepted for publication. The citation comes up under Google Scholar, but I just checked Pubmed and it's not showing up on there 🙁