Role of Google Scholar/RG in selecting applicant for PhD

[xisan92]

Hey Everyone, 

Does anyone know whether the admission committee visits the research profile of the applicants i.e. Google Scholar, Research Gate, Academia etc in selecting students for the Ph.D. program? I do have a profile in Google Scholar where I listed my conference presentations and posters. But just curious whether reputation (citations, h-index, RG score etc) on these profiles play any role in the selection of an applicant?

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

[TakeruK]

Google Scholar generally inflates your citation counts and metrics though. I find that for my papers, Google Scholar counts 20% to 25% more citations than my field's abstract database service. This is because Google Scholar counts things that may not be peer-reviewed articles as well, while the abstract database generally doesn't. 

To answer your general question though, yes, I do think admissions committee cares about your past history of work. But they likely evaluate this via your CV and application materials instead of relying on 3rd party applications. For some postdoc job applications, I had to provide a link to my author profile on my field's abstract database so I would think that if they wanted that particular metric, they would have asked for it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be useful as some people would have one but others would not.

In addition, for people at the grad school applications stage, it's not expected that your papers have large number of citations (or that you even have papers at all) so I don't think this is a big deal.

That said, I think having such profiles is important in general, especially as you progress in your career. On my research website, I have links to my author profiles in several databases. I use the NASA Abstract Database Service, ORCiD, and Google Scholar. These are useful for others searching for your work and your history to find you.

[xisan92]

2 hours ago, TakeruK said:

Google Scholar generally inflates your citation counts and metrics though. I find that for my papers, Google Scholar counts 20% to 25% more citations than my field's abstract database service. This is because Google Scholar counts things that may not be peer-reviewed articles as well, while the abstract database generally doesn't. 

To answer your general question though, yes, I do think admissions committee cares about your past history of work. But they likely evaluate this via your CV and application materials instead of relying on 3rd party applications. For some postdoc job applications, I had to provide a link to my author profile on my field's abstract database so I would think that if they wanted that particular metric, they would have asked for it. Otherwise, it wouldn't be useful as some people would have one but others would not.

In addition, for people at the grad school applications stage, it's not expected that your papers have large number of citations (or that you even have papers at all) so I don't think this is a big deal.

That said, I think having such profiles is important in general, especially as you progress in your career. On my research website, I have links to my author profiles in several databases. I use the NASA Abstract Database Service, ORCiD, and Google Scholar. These are useful for others searching for your work and your history to find you.

Thanks a lot!