What is considered a high-impact journal?

[Anonimus.Maximus]

Is there some sort of rule of thumb to assess this?

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[WedgeDawg]

It's kind of loose term. Traditional high impact journals include nature, jama, nejm, science, etc. it's harder within a particular specialty as an impact factor of 3 in one specialty may be high but low in another specialty. Within specialties you'll get a better sense of looking to see which journals landmark papers came out in rather than looking solely at impact factors.

 

[efle]

If you have university credentials to use, check out the Journal Citation Reports database. That lets you sort by subject area and see which journals are highest impact in their specific fields.

 

[DameJulie]

It's field-dependent. But personally, I would say generally IF>10 is high-impact.

 

[Goro]

It's field-dependent. But personally, I would say generally IF>10 is high-impact.

Ditto

 

[Doctor-S]

It's kind of loose term. Traditional high impact journals include nature, jama, nejm, science, etc. it's harder within a particular specialty as an impact factor of 3 in one specialty may be high but low in another specialty. Within specialties you'll get a better sense of looking to see which journals landmark papers came out in rather than looking solely at impact factors.

Agree.

You can also look at: SJR : Scientific Journal Rankings

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

JAMA, NEJM, Nature etc. Definitely are others depending on the field

 

[aldol16]

Literally the journals with the highest impact factors. These are field-dependent but by definition, the highest impact journals are the ones with the highest impact factors in that field. If you're talking about journals that publish the most insightful results with results that would interest the broader field, then these would mirror the impact factors, after you remove the journals that publish only reviews.

 

[Piglet2020]

Would publishing in a low-impact journal not help a (average) student in admissions? I guess it's not as impressive as publishing in a high impact journal but asking if it's noteworthy anyways. My research group is looking to publish in an European undergrad biology journal in the Spring but it's low impact. Mentor is pushing us to publish in higher impact journal.

Also, how do medical schools feel about a student informing them about preparing to publish? For instance, in an interview when you mention that your group is publishing in the upcoming month.

 

[boogiecousins94]

Would publishing in a low-impact journal not help a (average) student in admissions? I guess it's not as impressive as publishing in a high impact journal but asking if it's noteworthy anyways. My research group is looking to publish in an European undergrad biology journal in the Spring but it's low impact. Mentor is pushing us to publish in higher impact journal.

Also, how do medical schools feel about a student informing them about preparing to publish? For instance, in an interview when you mention that your group is publishing in the upcoming month.

As long as its peer reviewed its better than no publication.

Once you have a publication accepted you can tell them, submitting one is meaningless as it could take months to a year and can easily get denied before acceptance

 

[P0ke]

The PNAS is also really big and well-respected. The second adcoms see a student's PNAS submission on an application, they get wide-eyed and excited.

 

[aldol16]

Once you have a publication accepted you can tell them, submitting one is meaningless as it could take months to a year and can easily get denied before acceptance

Low significance =/= no meaning.

The PNAS is also really big and well-respected. The second adcoms see a student's PNAS submission on an application, they get wide-eyed and excited.

I'm not sure PNAS in any field is that high of impact - in chemistry at least I would rate it as medium-impact.

 

[boogiecousins94]

Low significance =/= no meaning.

I just meant updating an adcom without actually being accepted yet is meaningless, not the IF

 

[Piglet2020]

Alright, thanks! Sounds like PNAS is the journal to aim for then. This is the journal my mentor mentioned last semester for possible publication.

 

[efle]

I just meant updating an adcom without actually being accepted yet is meaningless, not the IF

aldol believes that because most submissions are decent, it can make sense to update/include on your app about a submitted paper, not just an accepted paper.

 

[DNC127]

Google scholar metrics can give you a rough estimate. As stated above it is specialty dependent. The top cardiology or oncology journals have impact factors in the high teens-twenties. But the #1 ortho journal has a IF of 6 ish, and the #1 plastics has a IF of just over 3. So basically, the smaller the field, the smaller the overall impact of all the journals.

 

[aldol16]

aldol believes that because most submissions are decent, it can make sense to update/include on your app about a submitted paper, not just an accepted paper.

To fully expand on this, I believe that the writing and submission of a scientific paper is a learning process in and of itself, even if it ultimately gets rejected from the journal. It is a step above simply working in a lab and having your own project because this means that you completed the project, more or less, and to the point where your PI is comfortable with submitting the paper somewhere. Papers get rejected all the time for non-scientific reasons. It can get rejected because the reviewers don't show much enthusiasm for the results, for instance, or the results aren't significant enough for the level of the journal they were submitted to.

 

[Lawpy]

aldol believes that because most submissions are decent, it can make sense to update/include on your app about a submitted paper, not just an accepted paper.

To fully expand on this, I believe that the writing and submission of a scientific paper is a learning process in and of itself, even if it ultimately gets rejected from the journal. It is a step above simply working in a lab and having your own project because this means that you completed the project, more or less, and to the point where your PI is comfortable with submitting the paper somewhere. Papers get rejected all the time for non-scientific reasons. It can get rejected because the reviewers don't show much enthusiasm for the results, for instance, or the results aren't significant enough for the level of the journal they were submitted to.

And here i was thinking what @Goro said: anyone can submit a paper. I can write something with a crayon on a brown paper bag, submit it to Nature, and call it submitted

 

[boogiecousins94]

I think submission of a paper is an achievement of itself, but in the eyes of an adcom (which I am not) how can they confirm you actually submitted anything? That's why I feel like it's "meaningless." Not meaningless in the real world but in terms of admissions the weight a submission will have is purely subjective of the adcom who is looking at your app. I think it has meaning but it's much more open to interpretation to an adcom than an accepted paper would be. Not saying that people would lie but you can easily check accepted papers once they're indexed on pubmed/medline but there's no real way to check for submission without contacting the PI

 

[Goro]

And here i was thinking what @Goro said: anyone can submit a paper. I can write something with a crayon on a brown paper bag, submit it to Nature, and call it submitted

Yup! And NIH biosketches do NOT allow you to include submitted manuscripts, nor in progress ones. So Adcoms will be familiar with these stringencies.

 

[Goro]

I think submission of a paper is an achievement of itself, but in the eyes of an adcom (which I am not) how can they confirm you actually submitted anything? That's why I feel like it's "meaningless." Not meaningless in the real world but in terms of admissions the weight a submission will have is purely subjective of the adcom who is looking at your app. I think it has meaning but it's much more open to interpretation to an adcom than an accepted paper would be. Not saying that people would lie but you can easily check accepted papers once they're indexed on pubmed/medline but there's no real way to check for submission without contacting the PI

Yup!!

 

[aldol16]

And here i was thinking what @Goro said: anyone can submit a paper. I can write something with a crayon on a brown paper bag, submit it to Nature, and call it submitted

That has always been a reductio ad absurdum argument. How many submissions in the history of Nature do you think were complete **** and unpublishable like that? How many were good science but rejected for other reasons? Hint: one number is orders of magnitude larger than the other.

 

[aldol16]

I think submission of a paper is an achievement of itself, but in the eyes of an adcom (which I am not) how can they confirm you actually submitted anything? That's why I feel like it's "meaningless." Not meaningless in the real world but in terms of admissions the weight a submission will have is purely subjective of the adcom who is looking at your app. I think it has meaning but it's much more open to interpretation to an adcom than an accepted paper would be. Not saying that people would lie but you can easily check accepted papers once they're indexed on pubmed/medline but there's no real way to check for submission without contacting the PI

Adcoms also couldn't verify, based on what you write in those blurbs, that you actually measured the effect of Gene X on the rate of CpG methylation. For all they know, you could have been cleaning the beakers for the guy who measured it. Yes, they can call or email your PI. But they could also find out whether you submitted a paper by that same route.

There is no doubt that accepted papers boost your application much more than any submitted paper. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't mention a submitted paper at all.