<p>...to ask them about their research, and essentially "suck up." Does it actually help you gain admission or not? Might it even hurt your chances? I've heard stories where students were actually "lead-on" by the faculty or adcom and then rejected. </p>
<p>Obviously it's a lot of work to do the research on the faculty and then follow through with this communication, so I'd like to know if it's worth it.</p>
<p>You don’t “suck up” - you professionally lay out your reasons for being interested in graduate study with that professor, and your qualifications for joining the program.</p>
<p>No professor can 100% guarantee you admission before the admissions committee meets and decides on the total candidate pool.</p>
<p>I took the time to make contact with dozens of professors, and it was a huge help to my graduate application process. In fact, given my modest qualifications - 3.0 GPA, terrible quant score, no coursework and relatively little experience in the field - I daresay it was essential to my success.</p>
<p>Some professors responded enthusiastically to my proposal and encouraged me to apply. I started conversations with those faculty members, exploring the potential for a match at their program. Some were noncommital. Some let me know that I wouldn’t be a good fit in their program, or they had no funding available. I crossed those schools off my list.</p>
<p>I applied to eight programs, and was accepted at seven of them. I visited the most promising four - each of those was a school where a professor had told me they were very interested in having me as a student. Three of those schools then offered me various levels of funding. I accepted a full research assistantship at Indiana University.</p>
<p>The desirability of contact with faculty members prior to acceptance varies according to one’s discipline. For example, in economics at decent schools, it is taboo: at best, your contact will be ignored. Econ departments get hundreds of applications for a very few spots and the profs just would not have time to respond to all interested students. After a student has been accepted and prior to the student’s decision, profs encourage contact.</p>
<p>Thank you! So my next question would be, how close is the relationship between the faculty member you email (do you email just 1 or 2?) and the admissions committee? I mean, I can easily imagine the professor replies to me and basically says “I don’t know” and then tells me to apply at the front office, as if he/she has no power or leverage over the decision.</p>
<p>The professor you e-mail is likely on the admissions committee, or at worst directly knows someone on it.</p>
<p>Graduate admissions committees are made up of faculty in the discipline you’re applying to. If a professor wants a particular applicant admitted and funded, they generally have the power to do that, depending on their status within the department. More senior faculty usually have more leverage.</p>
<p>Thank you again.</p>
<p>See my greatest fear is that the professor(s) won’t really think I’m a match after receiving my email/talking with me, so they’ll know they can eliminate me or worse, go out of their way to do so. Maybe they think I’m “playing games” and they see right through it and don’t like that? Especially since it’s via email, it’s rather impersonal and doesn’t give me a chance to properly make a good first impression or defend myself. Immediate rejection. That’s the risk involved. Or does that never happen? </p>
<p>How do I avoid this? What questions do I ask? How much do I reveal about myself?</p>
<p>BTW, I’m looking into competitive PhD programs (biosciences).</p>
<p>Also, what percentage of applicants do this? Obviously the more that do, the less it helps? Haha maybe starting this thread a bad idea.</p>
<p>OP, now that you mentioned the confidence issue, box it up and hide it away. You need to put one foot in front of the other to pursue grad school and succeed there. Don’t suck up to profs. They like attention but can id bull. Most grad profs have a high level of pride in their work and their positions and a commitment to what they do. To be grad school material, you should have an idea of what your specific interests in the field are. You should also know which schools will best allow you to focus on those interests. Then, you think up intelligent, relevant questions.</p>
<p>Most applicants in the biological sciences don’t make email contact prior to admission. I would wager that, of those students who do contact professors, most contacts don’t result in a meaningful change in probability of admission.</p>
<p>If you’re worried about how your contact could be perceived, talk with your favorite professors and ask whether they think you should email. When I was applying, my PI advised me not to contact professors, and told me that he’d write an email of introduction to anybody with whom I really wanted contact.</p>
<p>
In many ways, that is a positive result of such a contact - it is far better to be rejected by a professor than to be initially admitted only to find out once you are enrolled that you cannot meet their standard and possibly don’t like them or their research!</p>
<p>
Always a risk. The trick is to make sure that you contact them for valid reasons, to ask intelligent questions about their research and what they expect of their graduate students. Make sure that you do not phrase it in any way that sounds like “please help me get admitted”, instead aiming for “I’m trying to make sure that I should apply to work under you.”</p>
<p>
Ask about their current and future research, including some comments about their published research that show your genuine interest - you know what they have done, and want to know what they will be working on in the future. Ask what expectations they maintain for their particular lab group, and if they plan on accepting any new students into their group this year. Ask if you may be allowed to contact one or more of their current grad students to ask about the group and department. </p>
<p>Reveal a minimum about yourself - you are not trying to apply with this email, just trying to find information and hopefully provoke some interest. Mention your school, major, and degree, but do not go further unless asked or unless it is someway relevant “I know that you have been working on XYZ recently, and I spent the last two years working with Professor ABC in the same area…”. Do not attach a resume, do not mention GPA - if they are interested in either they will ask you.</p>
<p>Remember that the first goal of these contacts should be to obtain further information for yourself, and that any advantage it may bring you in actual admissions is a speculative bonus. Remember also that a great many professors will ignore you completely, either by policy or by simply missing your emails - don’t push them.</p>
<p>I contacted roughly half a dozen professors at each of 4 different schools, got replies form roughly half. As a result of those contacts I was able to eliminate several and zero in on others, mentioning them specifically in my application package. One school was completely eliminated from contention. I do not know that it helped me with actual admissions, but I do not see where it hurt me anywhere.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Precisely. You’re aiming to find out whether or not you would be a competitive candidate in the pool, whether or not you’re barking up the wrong tree.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As cosmicfish said, if you find out in advance that you wouldn’t be a good fit, then you just saved the time and cost of applying to that school.</p>
<p>Very helpful replies you all, thank you. An especially great reply from comicfish and scribe. I wish there was a “thank” function on these forums. </p>
<p>It seems I need to change my fundamental approach if I’m to contact anybody, that is, by showing genuine interest in the research rather than admission to a program. It’s going to be a lot of work but fortunately I do have a narrow set of interests where I can start. </p>
<p>I’m partly concerned that some of the information I dig up or a lack of replies will discourage me from some programs I really want to go to right now, like Comicfish said, because I only have a handful of schools on my list anyways. I was planning to cast my net wide, not shrink it. </p>
<p>Anyways, here we go. I’ll get on it soon…thanks again.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think it’s a bad idea to have “dream” grad schools before you really start studying the admissions process. Admission is really, really selective and you really don’t know where the “best” program is for you, until you figure out what professors are working in your area. Depending on your field, the traditional “HYPSOMGLOL” schools may be completely irrelevant. None of those schools even offer a program in my discipline, for example.</p>
<p>You do want to cast your net wide, but… applying to each program can cost $100 and up, between transcript fees, GRE fees and application fees. You don’t want it to be too wide.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yup. Academic graduate school is all about research. You won’t be admitted, in most disciplines, unless you can articulate an interest in pursuing research. It’s not about “OMG YOUR PROGRAM IS THE BEST CUZ USNWR SAYS ITS RANKED HIGH,” it’s about “I’m interested in working with you because I’m interested in pursuing similar research.”</p>
<p>Never saw that hypsomglol before and it’s so appropriate.</p>
<p>^And, not just “I’m interested in…” but also what you have done, to-date.</p>
<p>Sorry but what is hypsomglol?</p>
<p>Edit, nevermind got it. LOL. That’s def not me.</p>
<p>My daughter studied math/cs and her profs told her not to email profs. They said it is extremely distracting and verging on rude condidering how busy that time of year is. She said they are innumdated by overseas students who don’t know any better.</p>
<p>If you have identified a prof or two you are interested in working with, it is a good idea to mention that in you app (and why) because it is likely your app will get routed to him.</p>
<p>Now despite that, she did decide to contact one guy to see if he was accepting grad students because she was the main person she wanted to work with there, and she didn’t see any grad students listed under him on the website. She had also seen him give a talk at Brown and was able to express her interest in that sort of research. She rec’d a very cordial reply with attachments to his current papers. He said that the dept committee decides who gets admitted, except that each professor is allowed one pick at their own discretion. I think she was his pick. He said they had a record 1.000 grad student applications, so you can see that emails from applicants and the multiple more potential applicants could be overwhelming. The other 2 schools she was accepted to had no contact until acceptance.</p>
<p>So that just one more report fyi. You can search this forum because this question has been asked and answered many times.</p>
<p>Another school she could have contacted was one where she knew the prof in her field quite well, ashe worked often with her main research prof at her undergrad. She didn’t get accepted there. It was considered a safety by her, but it is impossible to know why. Maybe she should have expressed interest and I’m sure he know he knew she could get into top 10-20 schools. Maybe they just didn’t have budget. But she did have reason to be happy to go there.</p>
<p>Considering any school a “safety” for funded graduate admissions is naive. The competition for such slots is very fierce everywhere, because the number of funded slots is always well below the number of applicants.</p>
<p>How do you say in the email to a professor you’re interested in working for them…but perhaps not really, at least not so fast. These schools have a first-year rotation program and as far as I know, the admission committee understands that students sometimes change their research interest after the rotation. So in asking details about their lab group, I want to make sure they know I’m also interested in the umbrella program. </p>
<p>And then if they don’t respond to you, can you still talk about them in your essay/statement?</p>
<p>Given the fact that there are umbrella programs and the chance that I may work under the person I emailed is very small, I think it’d be wise to not use these contacts as decisions for elimination, but rather a “cherry on top” to my app. IOW, maybe I shouldn’t be discouraged by a no response or neutral response? Unless I get a reply like “you should not apply to this program because you are under-qualified, I don’t like you, and there’s no chance you’ll ever get in!!” I think I have to stick to my guns and apply as planned. </p>
<p>I don’t know if that sounds right to you, but it makes sense to me… :/</p>
<p>EDIT:As far as professors being inundated with emails from prospective students…really? I was looking at faculty email lists last night. Consider maybe 1200 students apply to a top school’s umbrella program. Maybe there are 50 faculty members total under the program (that’s a small number too). That means 24 students on average might be interested in one specific professor. If only 10% of those applicants send an email, that’s only about 2-3 emails…</p>
<p>I applied to only one school where I didn’t get a positive contact response from a professor. Not coincidentally, I think, that was the only school which rejected me.</p>
<p>Your mileage may vary, of course.</p>
<p>
You don’t. If that is the nature of the program, then your best bet is simply to ask what you need to ask. The fact that you are asking them shows the interest. If they get back to you, toss in a “I hope I have a chance to work with you!” in there. Don’t go any further.</p>
<p>
Absolutely. Just don’t imply that you have conversed with them.</p>
<p>
Yep. No reply is just that - no reply, not impending doom.</p>
<p>
It is usually dozens to hundreds, from what I have been told, and that is contacts, not emails - some people send dozens of emails trying to reach a professor.</p>