Run by the Vanderbilt Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach — an actual university programme, not a company using a university's name. Submissions open 1 November and close 1 December, publication is in May, and the whole cycle takes about six months. Original research only: 'no review articles will be accepted.'
Most journals in this category are companies with institutional-sounding names. This one is run by the university.
Who actually runs it
The Vanderbilt Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach, at Vanderbilt University.
That distinction matters more than anything else on this page. Across the venues a school student will encounter, the name on the masthead is frequently doing work the organisation has not earned — Oxford Scholastica puts the general case bluntly, noting that "There are no Oxford summer schools affiliated with Oxford University," and the same ambiguity runs through journal names.
Young Scientist is not in that category. Its submission pages sit on vanderbilt.edu, with a Nashville mailing address and a university phone number. The Columbia Junior Science Journal has a comparable connection as a spin-off of Columbia's undergraduate science journal. Most others do not.
The window
One month a year, which is the thing to act on.
| Stage | When |
|---|---|
| Submission window | 1 November – 1 December |
| Review comments | Late January |
| Revised manuscript due | Late February |
| Second review results | Late March |
| Proof approval | Early April |
| Publication | May |
The journal states that it takes "roughly 6 MONTHS between manuscript submission and publication."
Two consequences. First, this is a hard calendar: miss December and you wait a year. Second, the two-round structure with a revision stage in between is a real review process — the journal expects to send comments and expects you to respond, which is how publishing actually works and is more than several competitors offer.
If you have finished original science, this is the nearest genuine deadline in the category.
What it publishes, and what it refuses
Original research only. The page is unambiguous: "Original research only, no review articles will be accepted."
It also requires the research to have been completed "within the past 1-2 years," which rules out reviving something from early in your school career.
This is the single most important fact for most readers, because sending a literature review to a journal that does not publish them is the commonest avoidable rejection in student publishing. If your project synthesises what others have found — and most history, English and many humanities projects do — your venues are NHSJS, the Columbia Junior Science Journal and the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship.
Our comparison of every student research venue sets the whole category side by side.
What it costs
No fee is mentioned on its submission pages.
That places it with NHSJS and CJSJ among the genuinely free routes:
| Journal | At submission | On acceptance | Fast track |
|---|---|---|---|
| Young Scientist Journal | Not mentioned | Not mentioned | None |
| Columbia Junior Science Journal | None advertised | None advertised | None |
| NHSJS | Free | — | $280 |
| Journal of Emerging Investigators | $49 | — | Refused |
| Journal of Student Research | $50 | $299 | $300 + fee |
The joint COPE, DOAJ, OASPA and WAME principles state at Principle 13 that "author fees or waiver status should not influence editorial decision making." A venue with no fee cannot fall foul of that, and no expedited option exists here to buy.
The authorship check
Stricter than most, and a good sign.
The journal requires that all co-authors — "including the principal investigator or lab mentor" — have seen the submission and support it, and that everyone signs the Young Scientist Contributor Agreement before an article will be considered.
Most student journals ask about mentor involvement. Requiring a signed agreement from everyone is a step further, and it addresses exactly the concern Yale raises when it asks applicants to state "your specific contributions if the work was done in collaboration with others."
If you worked with a mentor, have that conversation now rather than in late November. A mentorship where authorship is unclear is a mentorship with a problem in it.
What is not stated
Three things worth knowing you will not find out in advance.
The number of reviewers. The journal says "experts in an array of fields will examine, review, and critique your work," but does not give a count. Think.Check.Submit. tells authors to establish "independent/external reviewers, how many reviewers per paper," and the DOAJ sets at least two independent reviewers as its floor. JEI is the outlier here, stating that more than eight individuals touch each paper.
DOIs and indexing. Neither is mentioned on the pages we could reach. No indexing claim is better than a misleading one — Iowa State's predatory-publishing guidance lists false indexing claims among the warning signs — but it does mean you should not assume a permanent citable identifier.
An acceptance rate. Not published, which is true of every comparable student journal we have checked.
How to use the window
Backwards from 1 December.
Now: confirm your project is original research, completed within the last one to two years, and in the sciences. If it is a review, go elsewhere and stop reading here.
Before the window opens: write the methods section properly — which data, selected how, excluded on what basis, analysed by what approach. This is the section reviewers read first and the one student submissions are weakest on. Our complete guide to publishing covers it.
Before you submit: get every co-author and mentor to review and agree to sign. Chasing a signature on 30 November is a bad position.
After you submit: expect revisions in late January. What happens after you submit covers how to respond to reviewer comments without caving or arguing.
Where we fit
The Oxford Centre for Advanced Research runs 1:1 mentorships 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.
Vanderbilt's Young Scientist Journal is one of the three venues we submit to, alongside the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship and the Journal of Research High School. We should say so plainly here, because it means we are not a neutral party: we have an interest in this journal being regarded well.
What we can offer against that is the checkable version. Everything above is sourced to the journal's own pages, including the parts that limit who can use it — the one-month window, the refusal of review articles, and the one-to-two-year recency rule. All three reject student work, ours included, and we do not use paid expediting anywhere.
A student with a finished original science paper should submit here directly. It is free, it is run by a university, and it needs nothing from us.
The one date
1 November to 1 December.
If your work is original science and finished, put those dates somewhere you will see them. If it is a literature review, the three venues that take reviews are linked above and none of them has a deadline.
Frequently asked questions
Who runs the Young Scientist Journal?
The Vanderbilt Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach at Vanderbilt University, with a Nashville address and phone number. That makes it one of very few student research journals run by a university itself rather than by a company whose name happens to sound like one.
When is the deadline?
The submission window runs from 1 November to 1 December. That is a one-month window, which is unusually tight — miss it and you wait a year. The timeline then runs review comments in late January, revised manuscript late February, second-review results late March, proof approval early April, and publication in May.
Does it cost anything?
No fee is mentioned on its submission pages. That puts it alongside NHSJS and the Columbia Junior Science Journal as a genuinely free route, and ahead of the Journal of Student Research, which charges $50 to submit plus $299 on acceptance.
Does it accept literature reviews?
No, and it says so plainly: 'Original research only, no review articles will be accepted.' If your project synthesises what others have found, this is the wrong venue — NHSJS, the Columbia Junior Science Journal and the Oxford Journal of Student Scholarship are the three that take reviews.
How recent does the research need to be?
It must have been completed within the past one to two years. That rules out reviving an old project, and it is worth checking before you start preparing a submission based on work from early in your school career.
What about co-authors and mentors?
All co-authors — including a principal investigator or lab mentor — must have seen the submission and support it, and everyone must sign the Young Scientist Contributor Agreement for the article to be considered. That is a stricter authorship check than most student journals apply, and a good sign.