I’m curious to hear how you think publication in a well-known non-predatory journal ranks compared to other forms of recognition for research such as:
This may help me decide how much effort to put into my RD Stanford application. Previous international students admitted for my major seem to have extremely high-tier recognition.
Thank you!
Stanford does not admit by major. If you are applying for a highly competitive major (computer science comes to mind in the specific case of Stanford), this will not impact your chances of admissions compared to some other major. Stanford is however very highly competitive for admissions, particularly for international students. Your choice of major will be considered and might make a difference if you are applying to any graduate programs (such as a master’s degree).
My recommendation would be to make use of the approach recommended in the “applying sideways” blog on the MIT admissions web site. Specifically, this recommends that you do whatever is right for you, and do it very well.
To me publishing an academic paper seems like a great thing to do, provided that you feel good about whatever is in the paper.
Also, you should think of your application to Stanford as a high reach.
I might add: If you do get admitted to Stanford and choose to attend, then definitely attend the welcome reception for international students. You might be amazed at who you get to meet (and you might walk away from the reception thinking “how did I get admitted here?”).
And best wishes!
Thanks for the response! To clarify, I’m definitely hoping that my paper gets published–I immensely enjoyed the time I spent on it and am proud of the work I did.
What I’m trying to figure out right now is if that paper justifies putting significant effort in the Stanford supplementals. I have a sense of how much the awards I listed affect an application, but i’m not sure how to contextualise publication in this kind of journal. If I had an ISEF award or equivalent, I’d be rushing to work on my supplementals right now, but otherwise, I’ll dedicate my time to more realistic applications.
My advice: I would not even bother applying to Stanford unless you’re committed to putting your full effort into the supplementals. Stanford requires a ton of supplementals, and let’s face it – you’re not going to get in RD with rushed, offhand supplements. The odds are already slim for anyone to begin with. You would be wasting your time and money. So my suggestion would be regardless of the importance of the paper’s recognition, either commit or don’t commit.
In terms of the paper’s recognition, I would say that while it could definitely help your application, it wouldn’t make an otherwise uncompetitive candidate competitive. I don’t know your specific stats so there isn’t much I can say beyond that.
Yeah! This sounds very worthwhile. Best wishes and good luck in getting it published. I happen to have a daughter who similarly has a paper that has just been submitted for publication, but she was a couple of years past her bachelor’s degree before she got to that point (and she is not the primary author).
Regarding your chances at Stanford, I do not think that we can say, but more information might help us to guess more accurately. The paper should help. It is hard to say by how much.
EDIT: I see from your other thread that your stats are excellent. I also noticed that you have a rather long list of schools that you are applying to. Personally I loved my time at Stanford (I got my master’s degree there). We have also toured U.Mass Amherst which I see on your list and I have worked with multiple excellent graduates from U.Mass Amherst (many but not all of whom are from India). I may be biased but would be inclined to try to do a good job on both of these applications.
This topic was automatically closed 180 days after the last reply. If you’d like to reply, please flag the thread for moderator attention.