You already have two candidate papers and a supervisor, which is more than most students start with. The Extended Essay converts better than an IA because the scale is right; the IA usually fails on sample size. The timing constraint is real: wait until assessment is complete, which in practice means submitting after your final exams.
IB students are better placed to publish than almost anyone else at school, for a reason that has nothing to do with the Diploma's difficulty: it makes you produce research and gives you someone to discuss it with.
What you already have
Two candidate papers and a supervisor.
The Extended Essay. Four thousand words, inside one subject, answered using that discipline's methods, with an assigned supervisor who read a complete draft and gave written feedback. That is closer to a journal article than anything most students produce.
Your Internal Assessments. Shorter, course-embedded, designed to a mark scheme. Usually several of them.
A supervisor. Someone with subject knowledge who has already read your work and pushed back on it — which is most of what a research mentor does in the first three sessions, and you have it free.
The job is choosing which paper, and converting it properly.
Why the Extended Essay usually wins
Three reasons, and the third is the decisive one.
The scale is right. Four thousand words sits comfortably inside what student journals want. The Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship asks for 2,000 to 8,000; your essay lands in the middle without padding or cutting.
The disciplinary fitting is done. Because the EE had to be answerable using one subject's methods, you have already solved the problem an EPQ student has to retrofit.
The sample problem is smaller. An IA typically rests on data you collected in a few lessons — three repeats, twenty classmates, one afternoon's fieldwork. That will not support a claim a reviewer accepts, and it is not fixable by writing better. It is fixable only by collecting more data or moving to a public dataset, at which point you have started a new project rather than converted one.
Our separate guides cover each in detail: converting an Extended Essay and publishing an Internal Assessment.
Which branch you are on
Your subject group decides the venue before anything else does.
| EE subject group | Likely shape | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| Group 1 and 2 — Language and literature | Textual analysis | Venues taking literature reviews |
| Group 3 — Individuals and societies | Often data-capable | Scale it, then original-research venues |
| Group 4 — Sciences | Experimental or data-based | Original-research venues |
| Group 5 — Mathematics | Often original already | Converts with least work |
| Group 6 — The arts | Analysis and criticism | Venues taking literature reviews |
The venues, matched:
| Journal | Takes reviews? | Humanities? | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young Scientist Journal (Vanderbilt) | No | No | Not mentioned |
| Journal of Emerging Investigators | No | No | $49 at submission |
| Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship | Yes | Yes | Not established |
| NHSJS | Yes | Sciences | Free (+$280 fast track) |
| IJHSR | Yes, 2–3 per issue | Sciences | Free, then $350 |
| Whitman Journal of Psychology | Not stated | Psychology only | None mentioned |
Two IB-specific notes.
The Whitman Journal of Psychology explicitly wants IB-curriculum work — it states that manuscripts "must follow the AP Psychology or International Baccalaureate (IB) Psychology curriculum." For an IB Psychology student that removes the scope problem entirely, which no other venue does.
If your EE is a Group 1, 2 or 6 essay, it is a literature review, whatever it is called. Sending it to a journal that publishes original research only is the commonest avoidable rejection in student publishing. Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal says it plainly: "Original research only, no review articles will be accepted."
Our comparison of every student research venue sets the whole category side by side.
The reflection problem
The thing that makes an EE harder to convert than it looks.
The Diploma requires formal reflection sessions with your supervisor, recorded as you go, and the reflection is assessed. None of it belongs in a journal article. A reviewer encountering "in my second reflection session I realised my scope was too broad" is reading something written for an examiner.
This is more than deleting paragraphs. The reflective frame often shapes the essay's structure — sections exist because a criterion required them rather than because the argument needed them. Removing the reflection sometimes means rebuilding the spine of the piece.
The four steps, in order:
- Pick the branch. Synthesis to a review-accepting venue, or scale the data into original findings. Half an hour, determines everything else.
- Strip the assessment layer. Reflection material, criterion signposting, anything addressed to a marker.
- Write a methods section somebody could repeat. Which sources or data, selected how, excluded on what basis. This is the section reviewers read first and the one student submissions are weakest on.
- Resize the conclusion. Name what you could not control for. Reviewers trust a paper that states its own limits.
The timing
Wait until your IB assessment is complete, and check your school's academic honesty position first.
The EE is externally assessed. Publishing it while that process is live creates a category of problem with no upside, and in practice that means submitting after your final exams.
That is not as costly as it sounds. Review takes months anyway — NHSJS publishes 8 weeks median to a first decision with 95% within 14, Vanderbilt runs a 1 November to 1 December window with publication in May, and what happens after you submit covers the whole cycle. A paper submitted in June is in review while you are waiting for results.
What this does mean is that a publication will not be in your UCAS application. That is fine and worth internalising early: a paper you can describe and defend does the work at interview whether or not a journal has processed it yet, and "I have submitted this to X and it is under review" is an ordinary thing for a researcher to say.
The authorship question
Ask your supervisor directly, before you submit anywhere.
Most student journals ask about mentor involvement. A supervisor who did what the IB requires — discussion, one marked draft, reflection sessions — is normally acknowledged rather than listed as a co-author. A supervisor who shaped the method or did analysis is a different case.
The principle is the one Yale applies when it asks applicants to state "your specific contributions if the work was done in collaboration with others." If you cannot describe exactly which parts were yours, resolve that before a paper carries your name.
Vanderbilt's journal formalises this: all co-authors, "including the principal investigator or lab mentor," must have seen the submission and signed a Contributor Agreement. Have that conversation in March, not November.
What it is worth
Keep it in proportion.
Caltech reports that 42% of admitted students submitted research, specifying it should come from "a laboratory in a university or research-affiliated organization," and routes independent work to a portfolio. Beyond Caltech and Yale, almost no university publishes a position on what a student publication is worth.
Anyone quoting you a figure is quoting something unpublished. What is certain is the interview mechanism: a tutor can question you about your EE for as long as they like, and the Diploma has already made you produce something worth twenty minutes.
Where we fit
The Oxford Centre for Advanced Research pairs students with PhD candidates and early-career researchers at Oxford, Cambridge, other leading UK universities and Ivy League institutions. The Oxford Publication Fellowship is £3,400, roughly $4,400, and is built around getting a project to submission standard.
We submit to the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship, the Journal of Research High School and Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal, through standard review. All three reject student work, ours included, and we do not use paid expediting anywhere.
IB students are the group who least need us, and we would rather say so: you already have the two things a mentorship supplies — a supervisor and a deadline. If your EE supervisor will read one more draft after your exams, that is the cheapest version of this whole page.
The decision to make now
Look at your Extended Essay's abstract and ask whether it reports something or argues something.
Reports: you are on the data branch, and a few days of work gets you to a submission. Argues: you have a literature review, and three venues take those. Either way, the answer is in a document you have already written.
Frequently asked questions
Can IB students publish their research?
Yes, and you start ahead of most students — the Diploma hands you an Extended Essay of 4,000 words and several Internal Assessments, plus a supervisor who has read drafts. The work is in converting one of them, and the Extended Essay is usually the better candidate.
Extended Essay or Internal Assessment?
The Extended Essay, almost always. At 4,000 words it is already the right scale for a journal and already sits inside one discipline's methods. An IA is shorter and usually rests on a sample too small to support a published claim, which cannot be fixed by rewriting.
When can I submit?
After your IB assessment is complete, and check your school's academic honesty position first. In practice that means after your final exams. Publishing work that is still inside a live external assessment cycle creates an entirely avoidable problem, and waiting costs you a few months at most.
Which journals take IB work?
For a science EE with original data, Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal or the Journal of Emerging Investigators. For a humanities or social science EE, the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship, which takes all disciplines and accepts literature reviews. The Whitman Journal of Psychology explicitly wants work following the IB Psychology curriculum.
What is the biggest obstacle?
The reflection material. The EE requires formal reflection sessions that are assessed, and none of it belongs in a journal article — a reviewer reads 'in my second reflection session I realised' as padding. Removing it sometimes means rebuilding the essay's structure, not just deleting paragraphs.
Does my supervisor become a co-author?
Usually not. A supervisor who did what the IB requires — guidance, one marked draft, reflection sessions — is normally acknowledged rather than listed as an author. Ask them directly before you submit, and be precise about who did what.