Contacting faculty (Bio)

Graduate School
1

<p>I had a discussion with my PI today about graduate schools, and he explained to me it wouldn't hurt if I tried to contact faculty members at schools I'm interested in applying to. I was wondering, if any of you have had success with these faculty members responding to your email, what did your message contain?</p>

<p>Should I go into specifics of these people's work or should I simply keep the message brief and simply ask if they're open for rotations in fall 2012? I think a few replies could help a lot of people right now, seeing as many of us are in the midst of applying.</p>

2

<p>I think you’re late to the GAME, PLAYA. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/1182918-emailing-faculty-member-prospective-grad-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/1182918-emailing-faculty-member-prospective-grad-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>oh btw, if you try to copy me, ILL KILL YOU! jk jk :D</p>

3

<p>Eh, it depends on the specific faculty member you’re interested in contacting. I’ve had luck contacting prospective faculty members and they’re usually very blunt as to whether they are accepting students or not.</p>

<p>Then again, I’ve also had faculty members never contact me back. It depends on how much of a priority your email is to them.</p>

<p>When I construct my emails, I usually introduce myself. My interest in going to graduate school at X University and then mention how their research interests coincide with mine. You want to keep things as short and sweet as possible. If they are close enough to you, I would ask if they would have time to meet and talk about their research and get more information about X University’s graduate program. You’ll find that a lot of PI’s love talking about their research to prospective students.</p>

<p>And, as far as whether this will help your admissions… probably not, UNLESS the graduate program doesn’t do rotations and will admit students only if a faculty member wants to work with them and can fund them. If the graduate program does rotations, it probably won’t help that much, to be honest. But it’s always good to network.</p>

<p>Again, I’ve had luck with some PI’s and others I never heard a response from. I’ve had a chance to talk to professors from Northwestern University and U of Toronto simply by shooting them an email.</p>

<p>NOTE: With it being September already, it’s possible that a lot of prestigious labs are already getting flooded with emails from prospective students, so it may be tough to get a response from these labs.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>Thanks! </p>

<p>10chars</p>