How Important is Publication for Top Programs

[pecmsyx]

I double major in Statistics and Math in a top 10 university and I am applying to doctoral program in Statistics this fall. The Stats department at my school is pretty well known but the math department isn't as good. My major GPA in Stats is around 3.75, which is probably on the low end but my grades in the advanced stats courses are all As except for one class. I have participated in three separate research projects but so far I do not have any publications. My dream schools are Stanford, UW, CMU, Harvard and Columbia, which are of course all really competitive programs. I am still doing research and I am hoping to have something deliverable before submitting my application. However, I am curious about how having or not having any publication can effect chances in getting into my dream schools. Would love to get your opinions. Thanks very much!

[fuzzylogician]

Having publications is an obvious plus, but they are not required to get into good programs. It'll matter much more that you can discuss your research experiences in detail in your SOP and that you can articulate your research interests and fit with the programs you are applying for. Those research experiences should also help you secure strong LORs, which are also crucial. 

[rising_star]

Over in the sociology subforum, there's an AMA where this question was asked. I realize it's not your field but this should give you a sense of how grad director's think about this:

I think that in math and stats it's probably even less common for an applicant to appear somewhere in the author list on a publication.

[MathCat]

I can't speak for stats, but I definitely don't think math programs expect any publications during undergrad. Any that you do have are probably not taken that seriously. Having the research experience and a great LOR from the professor(s) who supervised you is worth a lot more than whether you actually published anything, I think. I know that in my specific case, the research I worked on nearer the end of my degree, which did not lead to any publications, had a much bigger impact on my admissions than the research I did the year before and had published by the time I applied. I was told that the very strong letter written by the professor I was working with was a big part of it.

[pterosaur]

When I was preparing for applications, I asked some top notch professors how important publications were for them, looking at PhD applicants (this is in neuroscience/bioengineering/computer science, for reference). They said they didn't put a ton of weight on it, for a couple of reasons. The first is that, from seeing a publication and even reading the paper, they can't tell what work the student actually did, as opposed to the other co-authors on the papers. Also, some professors are more willing to put undergrads on publications than others; sometimes they'll get on for just running the data collection, but other professors won't make the student a co-author unless it was basically their brainchild. Thirdly, undergraduate research doesn't always lead to publications for a huge variety of reasons that are outside of the student's control, such as an experiment just not working out (often undergrads are put on the pilot projects, which might not give promising results), grants running out, time limitations, etc. So the professors I talked to put a lot more stock in letters of recommendation as indicators of what work the students did, how well they did it, and how that translates to potential as graduate students.