UNDERGRAD Publications

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[vicente]

no publications

only a mention in an abstract and an acknowledgment in a paper.

[dunecastle]

is publications important in application materials? i always thought schools(espcially top programs)only judge people by their academic record, they sometimes even forbid you sending your publications to them, but only ask for transcripts and RL

[grae313]

Every top program that I have looked at (Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, etc) either have a specific place in the application for listing publications, or encourage you to list them in your personal statement. Admission panels for grad schools always say they want the applicant to demonstrate excellent research potential, and they seem to think that being involved in research to the extent where you have a publication is a good indication of this.

I got lucky--I just submitted my first paper as first author to J. App. Phys., and I'm a minor author on two other papers that have also been submitted and are awaiting peer review. I'm hesitant to discuss the details, but the research area was nanotechnology. It is definitely a great sense of accomplishment, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity.

[dunecastle]

well, it's really a mystery how important role a list of publications will play in applying to grad programs.i wished it would worth a lot, but i was always discouraged that top programs only look at how perfect your academic records are. As for me, i have submitted several papers, and one of them is about to be accepted, but my GPA looks very plain, i do not think undergraduate publications will help me get into good gradschools : (

[grae313]

dunecastle, I don't think it's too much of a mystery. I've seen it stated explicitely in websites that research experience and publications are all taken into consideration and can help balance out poor gre scores or a less than perfect gpa. However, at top schools, they will have no problem filling up the available spaces with applicants that have great GPAs, GREs, AND publications.

I heard a story about a faculty member on the Berkely admissions panel for Chemistry who once admitted to a student, "Look, kid, we've got 700 applicants, 70 spots, and 300 of them have published."

publications look good, there is no doubt about it--doing research as an undergrad show you have a strong desire to do research, and that you were motivated to take the initiative to take advantage of whatever opportunities were available to you. that counts for something. it won't get you into MIT, but it counts for something. especially paired with a good letter of recommendation from your research advisor.

[dunecastle]

well, it encouraged me a lot, thanks. But if my papers were still in review up to the time of sending application materials, what would i do to show the stuff? Will it help if I add it into the list of publications and noted it is not accepted yet?

[grae313]

yes, I think we may be in the same situation on this one. I'll be listing my papers as "submitted to xxxxx(journal) on xx/xx/xxxx(date)" It's not quite as good as sending a link to the published article, but it's better than nothing!

[dunecastle]

hope it will be much better than nothing: ),
well, as you mentioned nanotechnology and as you are on this physics forum, i guess that you are doing something like surface plasmon or electrodynamics problems on nano-scale structures, am I right?

[grae313]

I guess it would fall under electrodynamics of nanoscale structures Field emission from carbon nanotubes, to be exact.

[dunecastle]

seems we are doing something similar: ), my research is on theoritical analysis of photonic crystal

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[grae313]

what does IS stand for?

I did my research at my local NASA branch. I worked with several graduate students and a postdoc, and we were overseen by a senior research scientist. Especially on the paper where I am first author, I really feel I made original contributions and all the students are involved in the research from designing the experiment, to ordering the equiptment, building the experimental setup, obtaining the data, and analyzing the data. I think I just got lucky and ended up with the right group of people!

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[grae313]

wow, RG, that sounds really neat!

I'm getting IS credit at my school for the research I'm doing, and it will count towards an honors degree so I guess I'll just be doing the same sort of thing. I'm a domestic student and I'm taking the physics GRE in Novemeber. My dream schools for condensed matter experiment are Harvard, Berkeley, Cornell, and Santa Barbara. If I get into any of these I will be extremely happy! All I need is a competetive GRE score and I think I'll have a decent shot.

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@grae313
WHAT is your target score!! GOOD LUCk!

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@grae313
WHAT is your target score!! GOOD LUCk!

[grae313]

Based on the practice tests, I figure I should get at least an 800 and since I am a domestic student (and female), I think this will be enough to get them to look closely at the rest of my application, which is very good.

I agree with you that the GRE does a poor job of predicting research ability and success in grad school. I did some research/reading on the subject and studies have shown that, while good GRE's have only a weak correlation to success in graduate school, *bad* GRE's have a pretty strong correlation to doing poorly in graduate school. I've also heard that bad GRE's really hurt your application, but good GRE's won't necessarily help it because as long as you get above a certain percentile score, admissions panels will mostly look at the rest of your application. I think this makes a lot of sense--show that you can at least get a certain score on the GRE, and then it's the rest of your application that they really look at to see if you will be successful in graduate school.

So, while a great score will certaily turn heads, the rest of your application is just as important, if not moreso. On the other hand, if you do bad enough on the GRE, then the rest of your application doesn't matter nearly as much.

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[KB]

Wow. Nice to hear that there are some other girls around here.

I was wondering whether any of you are applying to astronomy/astrophysics programs and whether the expected Physics GRE scores are any different than for straight physics programs.

I sat for the test twice already, and canceled my scores both times. I went to a small liberal arts college where memorization was never emphasized and I've been out of school for a couple of years, so I'm kinda freakin' out here. Nov 3 is the end of the line for me and this stupid test, so any test prep advice would be much appreciated.

The best advice I have gotten so far which I haven't seen on this forum yet was to get a simple book on particle physics (I chose the Particle Garden) to brush up on the Standard Theory. It has been a nice break in between studying the heavier stuff, and I still feel like I'm being somewhat productive.

[myumla]

I was about to post on why there were not any female post on this forum!!

mmm i didnt see any "male posts" here either for all you know, half of us here on this forum could be female

i am not picking on you it just really upsets me when people assume one is male (or female, for that matter) for no apparent reason

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My bad,I take it back! YOu are right!

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[myumla]

@RG,
no worries

[hpharty]

@RG

PM me about MATLAB. I've logged some serious hours on there.

On topic:

I am listed as a coauthor of a talk to be given at a large conference by my research professor. Basically this just means I recorded the data and made the nice little MATLAB (what do you know!) plots to be used in the presentation. It isn't much, but considering the size of my program (large university, small physics dept) I feel pretty good about it.

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[nvanmeter]

i do think that along with strong GRE scores and GPA, a publication is just the think that will push you over the edge in the application process. however, i also know that which journal it was published in and whether or not you were the first author are VERY important. most professors will put any undergrad that worked on a project with them as a coauthor but none will let you be first author (at least that's supposed to be how it works) unless YOU wrote the paper.

and since we're sharing info - i have one publication as first author in Physical Review A on some theoretical quantum optics stuff.

[dunecastle]

I got confused. Columbia University's website says "Candidates should not submit copies of awards, publications, or financial documentation since submission of these extra materials will not enhance chances of being admitted." And it does not have a place at online application system to submit a list of publications or even abstract of them. So is Princeton and MIT. Does this mean that only to give a title of publication in CV is OK?

[grae313]

I would look again for a place in the application to mention a publication. For example, in Cornell's online application, they have a text box where you enter any awards or honors you have received, and list any publications you have. Most schools don't want you to mail them a copy of it, but are interested in a url to the online article, or just the citation listing of your article. If they really have no place in the application, you can mention it in the personal statement, or call up the department and ask. I'm sure they care if you've published or not, they just don't want to get flooded with people's articles that they don't have time to read.