How Often Do College Profs Respond to Contact from Prospective Students?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I've gotten several reports from students (or their parents) that tell similar stories. The scenario usually goes something like this:</p>

<p>A student expresses interest in a college via an online form, college fair, campus visit, etc. The student receives a letter or email from the college encouraging him or her to contact top-choice academic departments (or even specific faculty members who are named) for more information. So the student follows through yet receives no reply from the profs.</p>

<p>So here are a few questions:</p>

<p>**Prospective students (or parents):</p>

<p>-Did you contact one or more faculty members at a college (or colleges) you hope to attend?</p>

<p>-If so, did you, yourself, dig up the names of the profs you contacted or were they provided to you via letter or email from the college, after you'd expressed interest?</p>

<p>-What sort of response (if any) did you receive?**</p>

2

<p>I thought I would be going to grad school, so I talked to a few different professors who were interested in my area of study. I will admit, this is probably different, because this is something every prospective graduate school should do. I received warm responses from almost all of them, although in most cases my thesis adviser was a mutual friend.</p>

<p>I think it depends on how you go about this (and when you go about it). </p>

<p>First, make sure your e-mail address is professional. If you are not sure, that means it isn’t. Go on Gmail and make it something like <a href="mailto:jsmith@gmail.com">jsmith@gmail.com</a> <a href="mailto:jmsmith@gmail.com">jmsmith@gmail.com</a> <a href="mailto:john.smith@gmail.com">john.smith@gmail.com</a>, whatever. People will notice if your e-mail address is obnoxious and/or sophomoric.</p>

<p>E-mail early on in the semester (January or August/September) when there are no midterms, fewer conferences, etc. </p>

<p>Consider e-mailing the department administrative assistant first. It is their job to read your e-mail and perhaps you can ask what professor would be someone who knows a lot about x, y, and z or the department in general. Then when you e-mail the professor (if the admin assistant gives you one) you can say, “Mr/.Mrs. ___ suggested that I contact you about the history department here at ____”</p>

<p>Find mutual ground with a professor.<br>
“Dear <strong><em>, My name is willmingtonwave and I am a prospective student at _</em></strong> interested in the antebellum United States South. I understand that that is your area of expertise. I was wondering if you would be willing to answer a few questions about both your research and the history department at ___”</p>

<p>Which brings me to my next point: always ask questions. Never assume that your question will be answered (this goes for all things professional including for jobs). </p>

<p>My last point is one of the most important things just in life in general: follow up. Don’t get a response after a week? Follow up. Following up shows that you are interested and persistent (but I would not suggest following up more than once for this). The e-mail should be brief and to the point. </p>

<p>If at this point you still don’t have a response, try another faculty member. </p>

<p>I (almost guarantee) if you heed this advice you will get a response.</p>

<p>I hope this helps.</p>

3

<p>My son did it with one prof and it worked very well. He emailed the department chair with a copy to the administrative director of the department (which is also recommended above).</p>

<p>Some profs may be away for an extended period of time.</p>

<p>Also, clearly state in the subject line that you are a prospective student who has questions and name their college. You need to make it clear that it is not spam.</p>

4

<p>I’d also suggest emailing a prof who actually teaches undergrad students, as opposed to a well known “star” prof who mainly does research.</p>

<p>If you don’t get any answer, maybe that tells you something about how much that department’s professors are willing to make time for their undergrad students.</p>

5

<p>One of my sons contacted admisssions and was directed to a specific professor and was given a phone number. My son called and left a message with someone who answered the phone. The professor called my son back very promptly and answered his questions. I was impressed. This was a medium sized state school.</p>

6

<p>I know a lot of professors personally and I’ve found that, for many, their responsiveness to prospective students has dwindled over the past decade or so. In the past, faculty members didn’t often receive queries from high school juniors or senior, and those students who did seek them out tended to have a genuine demonstrated passion for their academic field.</p>

<p>But, now, high school students and parents hear so much about the importance of “demonstrating interest” that many are writing to faculty members just for the sake of showing such interest, sometimes sending questions that come off as trite or disingenuous and that can make the profs roll their eyes. </p>

<p>In addition, as enrollment-management becomes more of a business, professors are increasingly brought into the mix, being told–more than asked–to participate in the recruitment process.</p>

<p>The upshot is that some professors, who would have enthusiastically answered prospective-student questions in eons past, are now feeling swamped, peeved, jaded or all of the above.</p>

<p>In addition, the personalities of professors within a single institution are, of course, wide-ranging. Some are invariably ebullient, friendly, and happy to help court bright, motivated high schoolers. Others are focused only on the tiny arcane sliver of academia which may make up most of their entire world. They may be great about sharing their enthusiasm with the students they teach or advise but aren’t likely to reach out to anyone who hasn’t actually matriculated yet.</p>

<p>So I urge prospective students to try not to judge the experience that they’ll eventually have at a college by the response (or lack thereof) from one or two faculty members. Instead, consider making contact with current students who are majoring in departments of interest. Ask them about faculty availability and support, about which profs are known around campus for stellar teaching, even if they’re not the household-word “rock stars” of the department. </p>

<p>Willmingtonwave also makes an excellent suggestion about contacting the department administrative assistants. These folks are often the tails that wag the dogs on college campuses and can be great allies for not only prospective students but also for enrolled students down the road.</p>

7

<p>Two Ds at Harvard - each contacted two profs on their own to set up meetings in their areas of interest for their prospective student campus visits / tours. All four profs agreed to meet with them. D1’s two visits (one with a department chair) were warm, enthusiastic, encouraging - they probably were the main reasons for her interest in Harvard. D2 had one visit with a blase faculty member who didn’t show a lot of enthusiasm, but her second one went on for over an hour. She and the professor (another department chair) had such a good time talking that he called in a colleague and turned D2 over to her when he had to leave so that the discussion could continue.</p>

<p>Both Ds’ experiences with faculty as students have been fairly consistent with this. I have to shake my head when I read posts on CC (from people who’ve never attended there) about how unconcerned with undergrads they assume Harvard faculty to be.</p>

8

<p>I have e-mailed specific professors at Cornell several times to inquire about their classes and their specific specialisations and they have responded in great length, very satisfying.</p>

9

<p>I emailed a professor at a large state university on behalf of my daughter to request that she be allowed to visit a class after the admissions office (which says on its website that it coordinates classroom visits) didn’t respond. I dug up the professor’s name and course schedule by doing an internet search. The professor emailed right back and was welcoming to my daughter, both by email and when my daughter introduced herself before class (which had several hundred students). Given the hassles we had with the admissions office considering this and other aspects of setting up the visit, the welcoming response by the professor helped mitigate my negative impression of the university.</p>

<p>Someone, somewhere, will probably get on his or her high horse about the fact that I, not my daughter, emailed the professor. Feel free, but you might want to know before you compose your rant that last year my daughter never arrived home from school until dinnertime, and by the time we realized that admissions wasn’t going to assist us, it would have been too late if we had waited until she could contact someone.</p>

10

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<p>Yes. After attending an open house, S was given the name of a prof to speak to that handled S’s area of interest. </p>

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<p>After being given the name, he could look up the email contact info on the website</p>

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<p>Very prompt with info. on meeting to discuss it further.</p>

<p>My H is a prof at a small tuition driven college that needs every student they can get right now. But even before it got to this point, he would always respond to a prospective student or parent. He attends all open houses by his own choice. He knows that can make a big difference to families looking at schools. When he sees tours going by in his building, he will invite them into his office and talk to them for a while. Prospies are welcome to sit in on his classes. He has gotten many nice thank you notes and comments saying they chose to go to his school because of their meeting with him.</p>

11

<p>My daughter tried to meet with profs from her departments of interest for every school that she visited. She did not go through the admissions departments, but rather looked up the undergrad advisor or department chair on the department websites and called or e-mailed to set them up. Overall she was successful in getting the meetings that she wanted, although some profs were away when we visited (particularly in the summer) and thus she met with someone else from the department.</p>

12

<p>DD met with department chairs in languages at Georgetown and Pitt. They spent more than an hour with her. The physics undergraduate advisor at Pitt talked with her and set up appointments with another professor and a student and arranged a department tour (she spent the whole afternoon in the department). DD made the initial inquiry through e-mail.</p>

<p>And Schokolade–I found the names of the professors.</p>

13

<p>My DD has met with a professor at one smallish University in his office, and spoken by phone with another at another smallish University. Both were in the Dept. she’s interested in. Both were helpful.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine speaking with a Professor with the primary motivation being “showing interest”. How lame and (what’s the word for non-integrity"?) have we become?</p>

<p>edit: I think the word I was fishing for, the opposite of integrity, is DUPLICITOUS.</p>

14

<p>My child must be one of the unlucky ones. He received letters from two different departments of one school on his list. He e-mailed both professors; one told him to e-mail a different prof (he did, with no response), and the other did not respond at all. He phoned the admission office, to be told to phone a department directly. He did so, and was given the name of yet another professor to e-mail. So far, no response from that one either.</p>

<p>The e-mail address he used is the same one he used to get on the school’s mailing list, so I can’t believe that the problem lies there. </p>

<p>Very deflating for him, as he was genuinely interested in a couple of specific programs at this school and had some questions that were not answered by reading the website. I would not feel comfortable complaining to admissions for obvious reasons, but one has to wonder if the folks there have any idea that this goes on.</p>

15

<p>

No, I think that’s actually an exceedingly common response - at universities, at least. </p>

<p>I’ve heard quite a few people complain about professors not bothering to email prospective grad students back, and I personally experienced that snub at several top schools (Penn and Hopkins were particularly bad). I imagine they’d be even more slack about responding to emails from prospective freshmen.</p>

16

<p>My son contacted a math professor at each of his top college choices and always received a reply. However, rather than just writing to the head of the department or to a professor chosen randomly off the department faculty list, he first called the department office, explained that he was a prospective student seeking more detailed info about the undergraduate program in math, and then asked who the appropriate person to contact would be. </p>

<p>At the smaller schools, he was usually told to email the department head directly, but at larger schools, there was usually another faculty member designated as “vice chair for undergraduates” or otherwise assigned responsibility for talking to/corresponding with prospective students. By contacting them well in advance (2-3 weeks before a planned campus visit), he was able to meet with those professors and often sit in on one of their classes. In one case, the professor was going to be out of town while we were visiting, but he made arrangements to have another professor fill in for him.</p>

17

<p>-Did you contact one or more faculty members at a college (or colleges) you hope to attend?</p>

<p>I did.</p>

<p>-If so, did you, yourself, dig up the names of the profs you contacted or were they provided to you via letter or email from the college, after you’d expressed interest?</p>

<p>I looked up a professor that was the head of the department.</p>

<p>-What sort of response (if any) did you receive?</p>

<p>The professor was happy that I was interested and was very helpful, answering all questions and saying I could meet with her and sit in on a class if I ever visited.</p>

18

<p>Forget prospective students, I AM a college student and I still dont get responses from my professors</p>

19

<p>I contacted a classics professor at one institution to which my one had applied. She replied very promptly with the most amazingly friendly, helpful email. I was blown away, frankly. It made an extremely positive impression on me.</p>

20

<p>ooops, in reply above, “my one” should be “my son.” Must…proofread…grrrr.</p>