Research for T20

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CornellMANheh

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How essential are publications for top tier schools?

I have a 3.9/520, ~250 hours volunteering and 300 hours clinical experience. I have ~1200 hours research, a few posters at a national conference but no publications. Will this hurt me when applying to T20 schools? How about T10?

What is the definition of "strong research" at the T20 level? Do posters at a national conference suffice? How about 1st author abstract?
 
I can only really give my personal experience, hopefully it helps a little. I had ~750 hours of research, 1 pub (fifth author) and was doing a 600 hour research internship over the summer listed as future hours to be completed. I don't think publications are in anyway necessary.
 
1k lab hours + national conference posters is very typical for t20, you'll have no trouble getting interviews. Pubs are rare (exceptions obvs for cases like 2 years at NIH postbacc, or already having an M.S. Then the norm is to be published)
 
efle said:
I'm surprised that with 4000 lab hours only one school asked about 0 posters !
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Same haha. I was ready to explain the situation – work primarily on industry-sponsored clinical trials at my university – but it just never came up. It’s much more important to know about study design, background information, and analysis.
 
You have really good research stats for a typical applicant. I think for top-20 schools it's more important to have high GPA/MCAT plus some unique stuff in your application that makes you stand out--that can either be extensive research+publications, travel, interesting career experience or family background, and interesting ECs. For comparison, I had below average research (no pubs/posters, only two semesters as an undergrad helping out in a lab) but I'm also a non-trad with an interesting application and GPA/MCAT similar to yours. I had 3 top-20 interviews. Don't know about acceptances just yet. ;-)
 
CornellMANheh said:
How essential are publications for top tier schools?

I have a 3.9/520, ~250 hours volunteering and 300 hours clinical experience. I have ~1200 hours research, a few posters at a national conference but no publications. Will this hurt me when applying to T20 schools? How about T10?

What is the definition of "strong research" at the T20 level? Do posters at a national conference suffice? How about 1st author abstract?
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You're golden. Aim high.
 
This is just my personal experience, but I only had about 600 hours of research experience, no pubs or posters, and I received interview invites from 4 Top 20 medical schools, interviewed at three, and have been accepted to two of them. GPA 4.0 and MCAT 525. Research can definitely be a plus, but stats are a big consideration for many of these schools as are other aspects of your application and your interview. Bottom line, your research is fine and I don't think it will keep you out of the Top 20s. Aim high and good luck!
 
First author Nature paper is the minimum for top-20 schools. Most applicants have MacArthur Genius Grants or are full tenured professors, and the most competitive applicants have the Nobel Prize. Anything less, and your application is immediately trashed.
 
CornellMANheh said:
How essential are publications for top tier schools?

I have a 3.9/520, ~250 hours volunteering and 300 hours clinical experience. I have ~1200 hours research, a few posters at a national conference but no publications. Will this hurt me when applying to T20 schools? How about T10?

What is the definition of "strong research" at the T20 level? Do posters at a national conference suffice? How about 1st author abstract?
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With those stats and ECs, caribbean or DO may be your only fate.

In all seriousness, you're golden for T20s and T10s. Its a crapshoot applying to them, but aim high my friend
 
I'm not sure at all if publications have that much of an effect in getting you accepted, but they seem to help getting II's
LM ~83, thousands of hrs of research, 5+ pubs, ~300 clinical exp, T5 UG; perhaps not as much clinical volunteer experience
3 T5 II, 7 t20 II total; either WL or R from the T5's so probably one or more of:
1. Average interview performance, 2. Lack of clinical volunteer exp? 3. Average essays?

Well, I could only do so much in UG and I do not plan to take a gap year so YMMV
Personally I don't think research without pubs/results is really useful, but schools may think otherwise.

Overall, feeling happy that I got into any T20 at all and glad that the interviews and paperwork stuff is over with.
 
Sophist said:
I'm not sure at all if publications have that much of an effect in getting you accepted, but they seem to help getting II's
LM ~83, thousands of hrs of research, 5+ pubs, ~300 clinical exp, T5 UG; perhaps not as much clinical volunteer experience
3 T5 II, 7 t20 II total; either WL or R from the T5's so probably one or more of:
1. Average interview performance, 2. Lack of clinical volunteer exp? 3. Average essays?

Well, I could only do so much in UG and I do not plan to take a gap year so YMMV
Personally I don't think research without pubs/results is really useful, but schools may think otherwise.

Overall, feeling happy that I got into any T20 at all and glad that the interviews and paperwork stuff is over with.
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How was your nonclinical volunteer experience?
 
Having publications is definitely a booster for being competitive at top research schools but it's in no way necessary to get an interview or even an acceptance. With that being said, keep in mind that applicants are evaluated on a spectrum. You can think of applicants being plotted on a line - some are more desirable based on a holistic review of their application, some less. Now imagine drawing some arbitrary line somewhere where you grant anybody above that line an interview. Then draw another line where you'll offer 200-300 acceptances. If you're a competitive applicant overall, you'll make the interview cut. At that point, not everyone is equal. Some people will be more desirable than others due to their characteristics, e.g. publications, research, musical talent, etc. Getting a publication will help you get above that second line for acceptances. But it's not the only way. Maybe you have an extraordinary talent that the school really likes and wants. So maybe you're already above that second line. Nobody knows.
 
I got a lot of love from "5-20" ranked schools including one full tuition and two full COA merit scholarship acceptances to top ten schools, but no acceptances to top 5 schools with minimal research and no pubs.
 
The highest percentage of the incoming class w a pub I’ve seen reported is around 50%. Considering that publishing is a pretty rare thing to have accomplished by the time you apply (unless you’ve spent a few years in full time research after graduating), it’s certainly an overrepresented accomplishment relative to the applicant pool at research intensive schools. That said, that also means that even at the schools that are most likely to value your research XP, around half of the matriculants will have never published.

Everyone brings their own value to the diversity of the med school class and even at schools that explicitly want to train future academics, research is but one way to distinguish yourself.
 
Lucca said:
The highest percentage of the incoming class w a pub I’ve seen reported is around 50%. Considering that publishing is a pretty rare thing to have accomplished by the time you apply (unless you’ve spent a few years in full time research after graduating), it’s certainly an overrepresented accomplishment relative to the applicant pool at research intensive schools. That said, that also means that even at the schools that are most likely to value your research XP, around half of the matriculants will have never published.
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Which school is this?
 
EmbryonalCarcinoma said:
Which school is this?
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I can’t find the article right now but I was referring to Stanford. That’s the only publicly available number I’ve seen but I’d bet it’s representative of at least the t10 if not the t20

It’s also important to mention that this statistic is completely lacking any further context. Should we assume that a publication adds the same value to any given application? I would think not, generally I’d think it would add more value to those who say they want to be academics or physician scientists than those with different goals or profiles engraved into their apps. Similarly, we don’t know what proportion are first author vs mid author which tend to reflect different levels of engagement and responsibility for the work.
 
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CornellMANheh said:
How essential are publications for top tier schools?

I have a 3.9/520, ~250 hours volunteering and 300 hours clinical experience. I have ~1200 hours research, a few posters at a national conference but no publications. Will this hurt me when applying to T20 schools? How about T10?

What is the definition of "strong research" at the T20 level? Do posters at a national conference suffice? How about 1st author abstract?
Click to expand...
Quoting the wise LizzyM, who knows her stuff:
The proportion of top applicants who have a publication or a thesis is relatively low -- maybe <20% if you include undergrad thesis. Publications? Less than 5% have anything in a reputable peer reviewed journal.

Most applicants have neither a thesis or a publication after 2 years of lab work during undergrad.

To stand out in the top tier, seriously, you need to be in the top 2% in terms of MCAT and have an excellent GPA. Beyond that, if you have the minimum in all areas and stand out in one or two areas (research, clinical, service, leadership, life experience) you'll be fine.
 
I'm currently at a T20. Research is paramount, both in quality and quantity. I'd say about 1/3 of my class has a publication + honors thesis from undergrad.

Another 20% have an honors thesis.

The remaining 50% had intense basic science research and could articulate what they did really well AND participated in the actual research. Some/most pre-meds end up cleaning lab equipment or pipetting endlessly, none of my peers including myself did that. We were doing titrations/running gels and analyzing/interpreting results in conjunction with our grad student/postdoc/PI.
 
Luckyone1023 said:
I got a lot of love from "5-20" ranked schools including one full tuition and two full COA merit scholarship acceptances to top ten schools, but no acceptances to top 5 schools with minimal research and no pubs.
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What was your golden ticket?
 
I think the main thing is having been closely involved and actually doing your own projects and trying to get results/conclusions with your mentor. I had 1000+ hours, but no pubs and only a very minor poster presentation when I applied, but I think I did a good job of explaining what I did and the wider impact of my research? I got a fair amount of interviews from T20s and ended up getting accepted to 2 including a T5. I think there may be more of an expectation for having shared your research with a wider audience for those who took research gap years (which I didn't take).

Anyways to OP's original question, you're MORE than fine.
 
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