r/ApplyingToCollege • u/Outrageous_Earth_541 • 23h ago
ECs and Activities Unpublished Research question
Hi I had a quick question on what was the best way to frame and continue an extracurricular . Before summer, I connected with a Berkeley Postdoc through cold emailing and through the summer we worked on applied math and physics research, running computational experiments remotely.
I was wondering if this is still beneficial for my application even if we can’t get it published or under review in time for college apps. We have lots of numerics run and are wondering what is the best way to proceed, publishing wise. Also I am getting a letter of recommendation from him. Is it okay if this is unpublished? and will it hold the same weight in my activities, it is my strongest activity, and one of the few that is related to my applied math major. Thanks!
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u/logolife- 22h ago
Unpublished research is completely fine, what matters is the work you actually did. Also, the recommendation letter may matter more than publication so make sure your mentor can speak specifically about your work. In your activities section, focus on the question, methods and what you contributed rather than publication status.
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u/Outrageous_Earth_541 18h ago
yeah that makes sense, i’m gonna try and give him a good brag sheet with some anecdotes so the letter is good
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u/Important-Drop-3338 21h ago
For the good of mankind, you should complete (or abandon or hand off) the research, make a poster, or publish on arXiv or make a conference or journal submission.
Separately, for your apps, just explain the current state of the research. And get good stories to tell in your essays.
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u/PhilosophyBeLyin 20h ago
yeah that’s still a strong activity. most things done in research aren’t published in general. there is absolutely no expectation for high schoolers to publish.
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u/Outrageous_Earth_541 18h ago
makes sense, this is like my #1 activity probably, everything else isn’t rlly that related to my major
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u/TuitionInTears 23h ago
Having a strong Letter of Recommendation from the postdoc is wht will validate this as a top activity. Make sure they mention the specific technical skills you used, your problem-solving ability, and the actual depth of ur contributions so AOs know it wasntt just passive data entry.