How important are publications for grad schol acceptance?

[DrManhattanVB]

I was wondering this today. has it almost become necessary to have publications to get into grad school? I was talking to a grad student today who got denied by state schools with a 3.5 or 3.6 GPA, and no publications. I have plenty of research experience but as of yet have no publications. will this be a hinderance on my future applications to grad schools?

 

[Pengwuino]

Remember, you're competing against other people, you're not competing against some set standard. It depends on where you're applying. You can certainly get into grad schools with no publications and a GPA of 3.5. It just depends where. Stanford? No. Some not so well known school in the midwest? Maybe/probably. They higher you're shooting, the more likely you'll be competing against students with more and more publications.

 

[PhanthomJay]

As far as I'm concerned, anything you publish as an undergrad isn't going to be worth the paper it's written on, so don't worry about it. Publications begin in grad school, not before it. And if a grad school wants publications as a requirement for acceptance, I would cross them off my list. There are thousands of other grad schools out there.

 

[twofish-quant]

Pretty much agree with Phanthom Jay. The problem here with publications (and this is a problem at the professional level) is it's impossible to tell from a publication what the student actually did. It's possible (although a little unlikely) that the student did all of the work, but more likely you have the situation that the student did something reasonable and the lead investigator thought it was a good idea to add the students name to the author list. The committee is interested in knowing what the student did which is where recommendation letters come in.

Also, "dumb luck" factors into things. Typically undergraduates publish something that they are doing undergraduate research in. However, if you do an REU and it happens to be at a start of the experiment or if you have an experiment that just doesn't work, then you aren't going to salvage a paper from it.

 

[Curl]

As far as I'm concerned, anything you publish as an undergrad isn't going to be worth the paper it's written on, so don't worry about it. Publications begin in grad school, not before it. And if a grad school wants publications as a requirement for acceptance, I would cross them off my list. There are thousands of other grad schools out there.

Does some magic happen after the first day of grad school?

 

[twofish-quant]

Does some magic happen after the first day of grad school?

It sort of happens one to two years into graduate school.

 

[DrManhattanVB]

This is good to know. I still have a while before I graduate and my research is going great, so I think most likely if I keep doing what I am doing a publication could result.

 

[PhanthomJay]

It sort of happens one to two years into graduate school.

Yes, and it's called a thesis..or at least it used to be called that. But if I were to interview 2 engineers for a starting position, and one had no publications but could tell me that axial stress was P/A, and the second showed me his/her publication on the use of finite element analysis in the solution of stresses in thick walled shells, but was vague on the axial stress question, guess which one I'd hire for the job? If you guessed the second, you guessed wrong

 

[gravenewworld]

How about you try to get work experience? Hell that's the only reason ithink I got into a top grad school plus I made 55k while doing it. I went to a no name undergrad school and graduated w/a 3.7, albeit w/ a 3.92 in major, but worked for 5 years full time and published 4 papers. I now have an acceptance at a top 10 school and have interviews at a number 1 overall "ranked" school. Publishing in industry seemed to have carried a lot of weight for me.

 

[Curl]

Yes, and it's called a thesis..or at least it used to be called that. But if I were to interview 2 engineers for a starting position, and one had no publications but could tell me that axial stress was P/A, and the second showed me his/her publication on the use of finite element analysis in the solution of stresses in thick walled shells, but was vague on the axial stress question, guess which one I'd hire for the job? If you guessed the second, you guessed wrong

I wouldn't hire either, sounds like 2 losers, one who memorized a formula and another who didn't memorize the formula but memorized how to use a computer program.

Moral of the post is that you can't really tell how good someone is unless you put them to the test somehow and see what they can produce.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I was wondering this today. has it almost become necessary to have publications to get into grad school? I was talking to a grad student today who got denied by state schools with a 3.5 or 3.6 GPA, and no publications. I have plenty of research experience but as of yet have no publications. will this be a hinderance on my future applications to grad schools?

I've been on an admission committee at a top-10 graduate program, and (at least for me) while a publication doesn't hurt, it doesn't much help, either- especially if I start discussing the project and the candidate is clearly clueless.

 

[Poopsilon]

@ Andy: So is it the recommendation letters from professors then which make the candidate really stand out?

 

[PhDorBust]

I've been on an admission committee at a top-10 graduate program, and (at least for me) while a publication doesn't hurt, it doesn't much help, either- especially if I start discussing the project and the candidate is clearly clueless.

I was under the impression that the vast majority of graduate programs didn't conduct interviews?

Regardless, being an undergrad who has been published, I don't think it is representative at all of your worth. In my discussions, it has always been said that the admissions committee likes to see that you've tried research but doesn't care so much if you've been published.

 

[Andy Resnick]

@ Andy: So is it the recommendation letters from professors then which make the candidate really stand out?

I was under the impression that the vast majority of graduate programs didn't conduct interviews?

Regardless, being an undergrad who has been published, I don't think it is representative at all of your worth. In my discussions, it has always been said that the admissions committee likes to see that you've tried research but doesn't care so much if you've been published.

My (old) department had direct admissions- that's not always the case, tho.

Recommendation letters (again, for me) generally don't hurt, but I don't put that much weight on them, either.

What really makes a student stand out (for me) is the 'personal essay' part of an application: *why* does the student want to be in grad school? *why* my department? Thoughtful, mature answers are really appreciated.