naveed

Can you please tell me which one of the following two cases will be more persuasive and appealing to the PhD admission committee assuming all others things are same, especially to the top 25 US schools

Both students are undergrad and wanna apply to PhD

1. A person with 1 and half years undergrad part time Research Assistantship and published 3 papers during RA and have then published 4 papers independently.
   
2. Other person have published 7 papers without Research Assistantship and without any guidance, support and funding?

Thanks for your time.

GShine_1989

Hello naveed,

You'll need to list the publications and their venues for this question to be meaningful. It's not the number that counts.

People with 7 publications as an undergrad (pretty much guaranteed to be internationals) would probably get rejected. At that point, it typically signals superficiality to American admissions committees, which are looking for a genuine love of research. It's better to have 1 publication in a selective ISI-listed journal than 7 in unremarkable journals.

You'll notice that almost no American undergrad applicants have more than 1-2 publications (and they usually have 0 as first author). And yet they're are far more successful than internationals. American professors (and thus admissions committees) only care about publications in journals the also publish in. International applicants mistakenly try to pump up their publications number without regard for the venue, thinking that it's good enough if it just passes some bar and counts as an "international journal/conference".

naveed

I totally agree with you.

You can check my publications on my homepage

https://sites.google.com/site/naveedisp/publications

I have given links to all venues. I have one paper in ISI indexed journal, one at IEEE Xplore, others accepted at reputable conferences mostly ISI indexed conferences and IEEE conferences.

One of my short book has been published by a multinational publisher, You can view the link to book on Amazon + the link to the publisher's website on my homepage.

My book chapter proposal is also accepted for an edited book, Link to the book information on publisher website is also given on my homepage.

naveed

Normally in Computer Science researcher prefers to publish in conferences, so most of my publications are in conferences.

juillet

I'm in a social/natural science field, but not in computer science.

From my perspective, you don't have 7 papers. You have two "papers" (journal articles in peer-reviewed journals), a book chapter, and a book. Conference presentations don't count as publications, even if the proceedings are put into a book; they're good to have but not as valued as publishing in ISI journals. One indication is that if you review the CV for a scientist, conference presentations are put under the "presentations" header and not "publications." And then one of your book chapters is still under review, so you really have 2 pubs and one book. Books aren't as impressive because anyone can self-publish a book, especially in online booksellers. They're not peer reviewed, either. Usually a book in science is written by people already established in the field.

Working under supervision early in your career evidences that you can do the mundane kind of work that you'll likely have to do in a CS program. As a CS PhD student, you'll be working under your supervisor in a lab with other people. When you've got research experience in a more conventional position, there's proof that you can successfully navigate that kind of position. There's also a sense of validation to your work - you're working with an established researcher with a PhD, so there's the sense that there's some kind of quality control over your work. When you work independently with NONE of that kind of quality control, it can bring skepticism into what kind of research you have actually done. Publications help that. Presentations sort of do, but the process for getting a presentation accepted at a conference is a lot less rigorous and there's no indication to how the presentation was received at the conference (maybe everyone hated it!) Books don't because like I said, you can publish them yourself, although if you're writing a chapter there's a little more credence since presumably its being edited by experts.

For my program, I think my professors would select the student in the first case over the student in the second, all other things being equal.

Momwaitingfornew

In computer science, they do count as publications. But the quality/selectivity of the conference determines the importance.

naveed

@juillet

Thanks for your reply.

Computer Science is an exception from all other fields and in CS researchers publishes in conferences because the computer technology is so rapidly changing that a journal publication process makes the work stale and old.

The conferences in which my papers are published are also peer reviewed and at least 2 reviewers (in most cases 3) specialized in the field review the paper. So, conferences in computer science do have some value and even better than non-ISI indexed journals.

GShine_1989

Yep, it's true that conferences beat journals in CS.

I would go with case #1. The lone genius narrative is not very useful in applied fields like security. Collaborative work in an academic environment is necessary in grad school so its good to have some history there. Moreover, the path to top grad schools is to have recommendation letters from advisors echoing your claims and emphasizing the impact of your research on the group's overall work. If you're the only one talking about your research, then that's weaker because professors trust professors. In your case, not so much because you have publications to "speak for you" but I would still go with case #1.

There's another angle to this as well: claim #2 is generally not believable. Even most graduate students at top universities would not be able to publish without guidance or funding. Regardless of how well it applies to you specifically, the first reaction would be that it's an exaggeration.

naveed

@GShine_1989

Have you seen my publications and their venues? Are they good enough to help me in graduate admission. I know I don't have publications in well-known security conferences, but my publications are in peer-reviewed conferences like IEEE conferences.

GShine_1989

I'm in EE on the physics end (semiconductors and optoelectronics) so I don't know the prestige of different security conferences. All I was looking for was whether they would be completely unrecognizable to Americans and that doesn't seem to be the case for you. Being an IEEE conference isn't in itself a mark of credibility (a lot will publish just about anything submitted), but at least some of your publications are ISI indexed (which does guarantee credibility) so you should have most applicants beat on the research front. Whether that results in admission to MIT/Stanford/UCB/CMU is hard to say because admission to those four is very rare for internationals. But I think you have a good shot at other top 25 schools.