How many applicants have authored publications?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Are you asking out of the general pool?
Or as in "how many of you SDN applicants have published; identify yourselves."(?)

To answer both questions:

1) Not many in general pool have, prob more in SDN's population tho.

2) Guilty.
 
I was meaning out of the general applicant pool
 
well that's good to know for my sake :meanie:
 
The number would probably be closer to 5%. Most pre-meds don't do over a semester of research or just a summer. Of course though many do clinical research which is probably easier to publish in.

As for high impact factor journals... probably not too far below 1% of course its dependent on someone's perspective of what a high IF journal is. If you mean just cell, nature, science its probably a handful per year, but its not like pre-meds will only be authors only in low IF journals they publish in what their PIs publish in whether thats NEJM, Lancet, Annals, etc.
 
The whole concept of having a publication as an undergrad as always advantageous is dumb since most people's names are only tacked on if their PI is nice and happened to publish while they were there. If you had an independent research project published, then yes that is impressive and should be a meaningful addition to your resume. Otherwise, you probably did nothing different than most undergrads with a year or two of research under their belt.
 
The whole concept of having a publication as an undergrad as always advantageous is dumb since most people's names are only tacked on if their PI is nice and happened to publish while they were there. If you had an independent research project published, then yes that is impressive and should be a meaningful addition to your resume. Otherwise, you probably did nothing different than most undergrads with a year or two of research under their belt.

It is almost always more advantageous if you have two pre-meds doing the exact same work and one gets a pub without knowing either person who do you think will be perceived to have done more work. Later in your career ie residency apps would it be weird to have a lot of undergrad research in your residency apps but a pub would not be as weird. Pubs later pay a role in everything from tenure to grant applications.

Can you name a situation where it is not advantageous or have a detrimental affect? (other then obvious situation of faking research)
 
The whole concept of having a publication as an undergrad as always advantageous is dumb since most people's names are only tacked on if their PI is nice and happened to publish while they were there. If you had an independent research project published, then yes that is impressive and should be a meaningful addition to your resume. Otherwise, you probably did nothing different than most undergrads with a year or two of research under their belt.
why do people still think this? look, if you actually put up enough contribution, such as setting up the system for the entire set of experiments to go through, then you can't NOT be put on the paper. it's not just that the PI decides, oh yeah, let's stick you on there. that's the reason a publication even to a medium level journal is so rare.
 
why do people still think this? Look, if you actually put up enough contribution, such as setting up the system for the entire set of experiments to go through, then you can't not be put on the paper. It's not just that the pi decides, oh yeah, let's stick you on there. That's the reason a publication even to a medium level journal is so rare.


+1
 
The whole concept of having a publication as an undergrad as always advantageous is dumb since most people's names are only tacked on if their PI is nice and happened to publish while they were there. If you had an independent research project published, then yes that is impressive and should be a meaningful addition to your resume. Otherwise, you probably did nothing different than most undergrads with a year or two of research under their belt.

flip-flip-flip-adelphia!


p.s. Agree with Vandy - I'm published in Nature, and I'm reapplying this year. i.e. dont put too much stock in publications, its still a relatively minor aspect of your app.
 
The whole concept of having a publication as an undergrad as always advantageous is dumb since most people's names are only tacked on if their PI is nice and happened to publish while they were there. If you had an independent research project published, then yes that is impressive and should be a meaningful addition to your resume. Otherwise, you probably did nothing different than most undergrads with a year or two of research under their belt.

That's not really true. Being published will always look better than not being published. That doesn't mean being published makes you look better than everyone else that has not been published, but it can only help you, and let's not pretend that it doesn't.

Certainly whether an applicant is included in the author list is often up to the PI, however more often than not PI's will reward students that have made lasting, meaningful contributions over those that have done nothing. Perhaps it doesn't mean much if your publication resulted after one summer of research, but applicants putting a full year of research (including summer) and more that also have publications is typically a strong statement of their commitment and contributions to the project.

why do people still think this? look, if you actually put up enough contribution, such as setting up the system for the entire set of experiments to go through, then you can't NOT be put on the paper. it's not just that the PI decides, oh yeah, let's stick you on there. that's the reason a publication even to a medium level journal is so rare.

This isn't really true either. Tons of undergrads bust their butts but often research and publications is a political game as well. There's more that goes into who gets published than just how hard everyone worked, but that's not to say that how hard someone works isn't a component of whether or not they get published.

Sometimes the undergrad is working on a project that ultimately won't be publishable by anyone. Sometimes the undergrad ends up being switched to a different project part way through their research tenure and thus never develop much ownership of either project.

All of this aside, I think it's important to distinguish between undegrads that have published, and premeds in general that have. A lot of premeds have graduated from undergraduate school and gone on to research full time as a tech or other position (or perhaps even graduate school). It's likely that these people will be published, and it's important to remember that their research performance will be looked at differently than someone coming straight out of college.
 
Nature Nature? Or one of the specialized ones?

nature nature, which is great, but my point is that it did not compensate for other shortcomings in my app you know? I'm sure it got me more attention than I would have gotten otherwise tho👍

Its a bonus, not a dealmaker.
 
All of this aside, I think it's important to distinguish between undegrads that have published, and premeds in general that have. A lot of premeds have graduated from undergraduate school and gone on to research full time as a tech or other position (or perhaps even graduate school). It's likely that these people will be published, and it's important to remember that their research performance will be looked at differently than someone coming straight out of college.

This is an important point. Non-trad is becoming more commonplace and it probably will increase amount of publications. As for publishing in Nature... well its not like your first author that a huge achievement; whereas, being 3rd from bottom in a pub with 10 authors probably won't impact an app as much. Unless your applying MD/PHD or top 25 where the rest of your app has to be very strong as well I tend to think pubs are kinda overrated, it doesn't help you fit into a school's mission statement if its primary care oriented. Its the cherry on top of the sundae, its nice to have and contributes but its the amount of research below it that matters.
 
I definitely agree with you all in that it absolutely helps, and that it reflects a significant amount of work. What I was trying to articulate is that some people can do hard work over a long period, but other factors go into whether or not you will get a publication. My point was that I don't think it should always be a huge bonus, but I realize that often it is. The research I'm doing will not be published now, but might be in a few years. I'd love to have my work published, especially since it was an independent project, but if if it's not selected (and someone else's is) that doesn't take away from the hard work that I put in or the things that I took away from it.

Danlee: I meant simply that not all research is selected by the PI for publication. I put significant work in this year, but whether a publication is coming is up in the air. My PI did say that if it goes on to publication, my name will be there.

mmk: That's awesome man 👍
 
It depends what you mean by "publication". A lot of people call conference proceedings or poster presentations as 'publications'. There are a lot of applicants with those.

Applicants to MD programs who have co-authored peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals are very few (maybe ~1%).

That said, despite the perception among applicants that research experience is very important, it ultimately plays a very minor role in med admissions at most schools.
 
I have a paper published in a non-scientific peer reviewed journal regarding an ethical issue in medicine. I'm not sure whether of not this be viewed favorably, but I'm going to list it in my application.
 
Top