Are publications on arxiv.org valued by graduate admissions committees?

Question

Please see this question of mine first.

My question is: Does the admissions committee in grad school consider publications in places like arxiv.org as a significant achievement given the student has only completed bachelors?

I am asking this question because I have seen many math papers in arxiv.org that have not made new contribution to the field. In other words, those papers have not made new discoveries or solutions of the unsolved problems. This makes me wonder whether publishing at arxiv is considered a big achievement.

Answer 1

"Publishing" on the arXiv is not a big achievement; actually, it's not an achievement at all. In terms of how prestigious it is, it's not really any different from putting an article on your own personal website. The arXiv isn't a publishing venue, it's a preprint server---it's purpose is to serve as a public repository for potential articles. It has various benefits (it's probably more reliable than your own website, it gives credible evidence about when an article was posted and modified, which is sometimes desirable), but it achieves those in part by not refereeing the articles on it.

However, writing an article as an undergrad is certainly a meaningful achievement, and given that it can take a while for a paper to make its way to being in print, an appropriate unpublished article is still a positive for an applicant. Of course, the admissions committee wants to distinguish a good article from a bad one, and since posting on the arXiv isn't a good proxy for quality, the committee will look for others (recommendation letters, for instance, or possibly just reading the article themselves).

Answer 2

It depends on the paper.

If you post a good paper to arXiv, it will definitely be valued by admissions committees, especially if you (and your references) make a compelling case to read it in your statement (and their letters). On the other hand, if you post a bad paper to arXiv — poorly written, making no new contribution, or both — it will also be valued by the committee, but as an easy excuse to reject your application.

In other words, it's exactly like any other publication.

Answer 3

I agree with JeffE's answer.

One of the things the admission commitee look for is your research potential when they review the application.

You need to show that you do have the potential to do research. How do you show that? A well-written paper on arXiv is the evidence. Whoever writes your recommendation letter can use that to say it. You can mention that paper in your application. If the commitee has any doubt in your research potential, they can look at the paper and draw the conclusion themselves.

As long as the quality of the paper is good, I believe it's achivement. Whether or not the achievement is big depends on the quality of your paper. Of course, you may kill your chance to be admitted if the quality of the paper is bad.

In order to improve the quality of the paper, I would suggest you to let somebody (your prof/advisor) review the paper before you put it on arXiv.

Answer 4

The answer to your question is not really. This is because the people in Grad schools see if your publication has been submitted to a known conference or journal, or at least that they are peer reviewed. In arxiv.org anybody can publish their own work, being more like a big database of not or pre peer reviewed papers. I mention you this because I usually put my articles, the drafts that has been accepted in conferences, in arxiv.org, but there are some people that put only its ideas and even some articles that do not contribute too much to the developing of an specific field of science.

Answer 5

I think it is important to highlight one exception to the different answers given above. There are a few subdomains of research, mainly in physics, in which repositories such as arXiv are the primary means of communication. (This applies to topics such as string theory, and I believe some high-energy areas as well.) If you happen to work in one of these areas, then an arXiv publication will carry much more weight. Otherwise, the warnings given above do apply.

Answer 6

Putting papers on arXiv is publication, but it is not a referred publication. People use it for various reason but most importantly to timestamp their work and communicate their works with others earlier.

That being said, publishing on arXiv itself is useless, since no one has read on your paper yet. I bet that the admission committee won't read your paper at all. There are hundreds of applications, why do they want to waste time to go to arXiv and read a newbie's paper.

However, situation could be different if you can show your work already "reviewed" in other way. For example, it is discussed by journals like Science/Nature, or very well known website like arxivblog before the referred publication. Or, the arXiv version is already cited by independent research groups. Remember to mention that if you have.

In any case, you should put it in your CV if your papers are good. If possible, you can a try to attach a short excerpt from your paper such as abstract or the first page. It might be useful to show your work in progress and support your research interest in your application. In particular, if you already have at least one referred publication, the extra arXiv papers should sound much better.