Journals that publish high school research — and which to avoid

There are two kinds of journal in this space and they look almost identical from the outside.

The first exists to teach students how peer review works. It rejects a lot of submissions, sends detailed feedback on the rest, and takes months. The second exists to convert a submission into a PDF with a DOI and an invoice.

Both have professional websites. Both use the phrase "peer-reviewed." Below is what actually separates them, then the specific numbers for the venues we use and the ones you are most likely to encounter elsewhere.

What makes a journal worth submitting to?

Six signals, in rough order of usefulness.

A published acceptance rate. The single most informative number, and the one weak venues never state. If a journal accepts most of what it receives, publication in it tells an admissions tutor nothing about the quality of your work — only that you submitted and paid.

Named reviewers or a named editorial board. You should be able to find the people responsible, with institutions, and check that they exist. "Reviewed by our editorial team" with no names attached is not peer review, it is a claim about peer review.

A review period measured in months. Real review takes time. Three to six months from submission to publication is normal. A journal promising a decision in two weeks is either not reviewing properly or is charging you for speed.

A fee structure that makes sense. A charge after acceptance is standard practice across open-access publishing and is not a warning sign. A large fee before review deserves more thought — you are paying for a decision that may be no. A fee that buys a faster decision is the one to be most careful about, because it is the only fee structure that directly trades money for scrutiny.

Disclosed independence. Find out who owns and funds the journal. ProPublica specifically found journals concealing affiliations with the research-mentorship companies feeding them submissions. If the programme that helped write the paper is connected to the journal that publishes it, the review is not independent, whatever the masthead says.

A back catalogue that reads as edited. This takes ten minutes and is remarkably effective. Open three papers from the most recent issue and read the abstracts. If nobody corrected those, nobody reviewed the papers either.

Which journals do we submit to?

Three, and each involves a trade-off we would rather explain than hide. Figures checked September 2026 — verify them before you submit, because several journals in this market have changed terms in the last two years.

Young Scientist Journal (Vanderbilt University)

Published by Vanderbilt's Center for Science Outreach, with Lauren Buchanan, PhD, as Editor in Chief. It has appeared annually each May since 2011, and it publishes high school science research.

The case for it: No submission fee and no publication charge. It is run by a university rather than a private company, which removes the conflict of interest that sits behind most of this market. The institutional backing is real and checkable.

The trade-off: One submission window a year. As of September 2026 the journal states plainly: "We are not currently accepting submissions. Our next submission window will be November 2026." If your student misses it, they wait twelve months. That makes it excellent for a project finished in autumn and useless for one finished in February.

Best for: Science projects completed in time for the autumn window, where cost matters and the family would rather not pay a private venue at all.

Journal of Research High School (JRHS)

An open-access journal exclusively for high school researchers, ISSN 2688-3651, established in 2019, with Raul R. Cardenas, PhD, as inaugural Editor in Chief.

The case for it: It publishes around 30% of submissions, which makes it meaningfully selective — the rejection carries information, which is the whole point. Turnaround is stated as roughly three to six months, which is consistent with a journal that is actually reading. It requires a named research advisor and IRB approval for any human-subjects work, which is a real methodological standard rather than a formatting rule.

The trade-off: A $250 submission fee, charged per manuscript, before review. Seven submissions in ten do not result in publication, so most families who pay it are buying a considered rejection rather than a paper. We think that is a defensible thing to buy — a serious reviewer's reasons for saying no are worth having — but you should decide that knowingly rather than discover it afterwards.

Best for: Students who want a genuinely selective venue and a hard word limit (under 4,000 words is strongly recommended), and whose families are comfortable with a fee that may not produce a publication.

Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship (OJSS)

ISSN 3070-3875. It publishes original research and literature reviews from secondary and early undergraduate students across all disciplines, at 2,000–8,000 words.

One thing to be clear about first. Despite the name, OJSS states on its own About page that it "is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the University of Oxford or any of its colleges, departments, or programs." We think you should know that before you submit, and we would rather be the ones who told you.

The case for it: The editorial board is named and checkable, and most members list University of Oxford affiliations, with others at the Institute of Classical Studies and the University of St Andrews. That is more transparency than most venues in this market offer. It also states that "papers found to include plagiarism or AI-generated writing will not be considered," and it accepts humanities and social science work, which the science-only journals do not.

The trade-off, and it is a real one: OJSS offers a Fast-Track Review at $125, charged at submission and non-refundable, promising an initial decision in two weeks. Standard publication is $200 on acceptance; a fast-tracked acceptance costs $325 in total. By the criteria set out above, paid acceleration is the fee structure we like least, because two weeks is not long enough to review a paper properly.

So we use the standard route and we do not use fast-track. If a student's timeline is so tight that only a two-week decision will do, our advice is to fix the timeline rather than pay to compress the review. The journal also does not publish an acceptance rate and is vague about standard review times, which is the main thing keeping it third on this list rather than first.

Best for: Humanities, social science and interdisciplinary work that the science journals will not consider, where the student can wait for the standard review.

The three compared

What other venues should you know about?

Three worth understanding, whether or not you submit to them, because they set the reference points.

The Concord Review is the outlier in this market. Founded in 1987, it publishes secondary school history essays, wants 5,000–10,000 words with an average published paper over 8,000, and accepts around 5% of submissions. Costs are $70 for the ebook edition, $110 for print in the US, $150 internationally. Getting into it is a genuine distinction. It is also no use to you if you work in a laboratory science.

The Journal of Emerging Investigators charges a $35 submission fee, introduced in February 2024, with waivers available on request for students who cannot pay. It handles more than 500 manuscripts a year across biological, physical and social sciences, and it explicitly frames itself as guiding students through the whole review process rather than simply accepting or rejecting. The mentored model is genuinely educational.

The International Journal of High School Research is free to submit to and charges $350 on acceptance, with scholarships for students on free or reduced-price lunch. It sends papers to "two or more outside reviewers," states one to three months to a decision and a further two to three months to publication, and screens every submission for plagiarism and generative AI. The transparency about process is better than most.

Which journals should you avoid?

Rather than a blocklist that goes stale, use the tests. A journal is not worth your name on it if any of the following are true:

• It does not publish an acceptance rate and will not tell you one when you email and ask. Do email and ask. The reply, or the absence of one, is data.
• Its reviewers and editors are not identifiable, individually or by role, at institutions where you can verify they work.
• It solicited you by email before you had heard of it.
• Its published back catalogue contains uncorrected errors in the abstracts.
• It is operated or funded by a company that sells research mentorship, and does not disclose this.
• Its fee rises with the speed of the decision, and there is no unpaid route with a realistic timeline.

That last one deserves a note, since one of the journals we use offers exactly that option. A paid fast-track is not automatically disqualifying — what matters is whether a proper, unhurried review is still available to everyone. Where it is, you simply decline the upgrade. Where the only realistic path to publication runs through the paid lane, the journal is selling access rather than assessment.

Does it matter to UK universities which journal published you?

Less than students think, and in a way worth understanding properly.

UK admissions tutors are not scoring the prestige of your publication venue. They are looking for evidence of independent academic engagement. Oxford's guidance is that "extra-curricular activities are only helpful in so far as they demonstrate the selection criteria for your course," and Cambridge, via Girton College, says it is "not going to be impressed so much by what it is that you have been engaging with... as the fact that you are engaging academically."

So the calculation is not "which journal impresses most." It is closer to: does this publication make my engagement more credible, or less?

A rigorous venue with a low acceptance rate makes it more credible. A venue that publishes everything makes it neutral at best — and if the tutor recognises the name and knows its reputation, actively worse. This is the argument for submitting to something hard and being rejected, rather than submitting to something easy and being accepted.

There is a second-order point too. A paper gives an interviewer something concrete to ask you about, and Oxford and Cambridge interviews are substantially about whether you can think in real time about material you claim to know. That benefit does not depend on the journal at all. Our guide to preparing for an Oxford or Cambridge interview covers what that looks like in the room.

What if the paper is rejected?

Then you are in the same position as most researchers, most of the time.

Rejection rates across academic publishing are high by design. Your mentor was rejected this year. So was their supervisor. The useful question is not whether you were accepted but whether you can now describe, precisely and in your own words, what you set out to test, how you tested it, what went wrong, and what you would do differently.

That answer is what a tutor is actually probing for, and you can give it whether or not a journal took the paper.

There is also a practical route worth knowing. Reviewer comments from a serious journal are often the most detailed critique a student has ever received on their own work. Revise on the basis of them and submit elsewhere — that is the normal cycle of academic work, and having been through it once at eighteen is a real advantage. It is also why we prefer venues that write proper reports over venues that simply say yes.

Students on our programmes also present at the OCAR Student Research Symposium, which happens on our timetable rather than a journal's. A paper under review and a symposium presentation already delivered is a better position in October than an empty space where a publication was supposed to be.

How we handle submission at OCAR

The Oxford Publication Fellowship includes guided preparation toward peer-reviewed submission. In practice that means helping a student get a manuscript to the standard a real journal expects, advising on which of the venues above suits their subject and timeline, and being honest when we think the work is not ready.

What we do not do is guarantee acceptance, because the decision belongs to independent reviewers and nobody who does not control the journal can promise it. Any programme telling you otherwise is describing either a captive venue or one that accepts nearly everything.

Two rules we apply to ourselves, which you are welcome to hold us to:

We do not submit to journals we cannot check. Named editorial board, verifiable affiliations, and a review process the journal will describe. Where a venue is vague about its own standards — as OJSS is about its acceptance rate — we say so rather than passing the vagueness on to you.

Mentors advise; students write. A mentor may ask questions, challenge reasoning, point out what is missing, and say that a passage does not work. A mentor may not supply text that ends up in the student's paper. It makes projects slower, and it is the reason a student can defend their own methods section under questioning.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to publish a research paper as a high school student?

Between nothing and around $350, depending on the venue. Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal is free. The Journal of Emerging Investigators charges $35 with waivers available. OJSS charges $200 on acceptance. The Journal of Research High School charges $250 at submission. The International Journal of High School Research charges $350 on acceptance, with scholarships. All of that is separate from any programme fee — ask any mentorship programme to confirm in writing what is and is not included before you pay.

Is the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship connected to the University of Oxford?

No. The journal states on its own site that it "is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the University of Oxford or any of its colleges, departments, or programs." Several of its editorial board members do hold University of Oxford positions, which is a different thing and worth distinguishing carefully if you ever describe the publication on an application.

Should I pay for fast-track review?

We would not. A two-week turnaround does not allow for the kind of reading that makes a review worth having, and the fee is charged whether or not the paper is accepted. If the timeline is the problem, the better fix is to start earlier or accept that "under review" is a perfectly respectable thing to write on a UCAS form.

How long does it take to get published?

Three to six months is realistic for a journal reviewing properly, and Vanderbilt's annual cycle can mean considerably longer. Plan accordingly: a project begun in the summer of Year 12 is unlikely to be in print before an October UCAS deadline, which is fine, because "under review at [journal]" is honest and gives an interviewer something to ask about.

Do journals check for AI-generated writing?

Several do explicitly. OJSS states that papers containing AI-generated writing "will not be considered," and the International Journal of High School Research screens every submission for both plagiarism and generative AI before acceptance. Assume any serious venue is checking.

Can a high school student publish in a mainstream academic journal?

Occasionally, usually as a co-author on work done inside a university lab and usually after a placement rather than a mentorship. It is rare, and it should be. A student-focused journal with genuine peer review is a more honest fit for most secondary school work, and tutors read it that way.