Advice on Contacting Faculty for Prospective Research Student
By David Evans
Who to Contact
Your goal in sending email is not to contact as many professors as you can, but to identify a few professors who you might want as your research advisor and then to find which of those seem most promising as advisors and convince them that you would be a worthwhile student.
(my take) Note
I think this particularly true for “normal” (in my world, privileged) people (e.g., US students). For someone who is an outsider (see I am an outsider by Yonatan Bisk).
I think people like me should create a trade-off:
email as many PIs as you can, with “enough” customization (3h max initially for the first email),
if you found a PI that you can call perfect, spend high amount (10-20 hours).
The ratio should be 20-1. in other words, because you found 5 perfect PIs, and you only have 100 hours, you should not spend 5x20 on all perfect PIs (5 PIs), rather 30x2 normal PIs and 2x20 perfect PIs (overall 32 PIs)
(my take) Why?
Because you find a perfect PI, PI loves you too, then suddenly you can’t get visa; the government in your country makes stupid laws, a war breaks out; they label your research dangerous and will get rejected by admins; etc.
First Email
Of course, your insight isn’t likely to be so significant as Flipper’s. But, you should try to:
- raise an interesting question about the work described in the paper,
- to suggest extensions or applications of the work,
- or to relate it directly to something you have done.
(my take) Note
I don’t think raising a question for the first email is a good idea. It is like asking someone how they are doing in their life so later on you can say you need something.
Although, no one is doing anyone a favor. It is just my view that raising a “good” question, means raising a question that has potential to become a research project. And for the first email, I don’t think you can reach to such level unless your research background totally overlaps with the PI’s.
What NOT to do
- Don’t send [unrequested] information about your GRE scores, GPA, class rank, cholesterol levels, favorite movies, etc. and ask what your chances of admission are.
- Don’t send a first email longer than a typical screenful.
- Don’t waste space and time telling me how hard-working, creative and smart you are — demonstrate it with the contents of your message.
- Don’t waste space and time telling me how brilliant I am. Don’t use flattery words, e.g., “your amazing paper.”
- Don’t make generic statements about being interested in my work or how well it relates to your interests. Most professors have projects in several different areas and can’t figure out what you mean
- Don’t attach anything to your email. Its great if you have a blog post or two about something interesting you’ve learned or done on your personal website
your personal website shouldn't be a LinkedIn page
- Don’t use hyperlinks. the URL should be included just as text (“see my paper at: https://www.prakriti.org/st…”) , not as HTML formatting (e.g., my paper). (Most email readers will turn the plaintext URL into a clickable link, so it is just as easy to open, and avoids hiding the URL).
- Don’t use fancy formatting in your email.
- If you have a preferred name (on top of a legal name): so if you use another name in your email communications with faculty, it is important to also provide the name you use in your application so they can identify the corresponding application. This is a good opportunity to refresh the relationship after you send in your application by informing your contact to the formal name used in your application.
(my take) Note
Due to many issues that I’ve had no choice and I am not going to list but I would like to refer to name privilege, I should use my preferred name everywhere until we actually get to the administrative tasks which are legally bonding. The fact that my legal name in no way (cultural, national, identity, etc) representative of me, is just very sad and frustrating, particularly when I get punished for it!
Follow up
If you don’t get a reply after about a week, send a follow up email that politely asks if the message was received and includes the previous message. (I said that before on minimalizing admin tasks for the PIs)
Success
(my take) Minimalize administrative tasks that a supervisors needs to do. Make your interactions in a way that they point, you pave the way.
Info from comments
QAs
Question
When you read two applications, both claiming an interest in the field, what are the metrics that you (and others you may know of) use to decide which candidate to accept, assuming both candidates have written papers (not in the exact same field) and demonstrate some prior experience? Assuming the US model.
Answer
Very few people have “eloquent SOPs”, so it is not so hard to write one that stands out.
Mainly, I want to see something that demonstrates curiosity and ability to carry through an ambitious project. This doesn’t need to be in the area I work in, or even research - just something that shows how you encountered or found an interesting problem or question you were curious about, what you did to solve it, and why that was interesting. The best SOPs are ones where I learn something from reading them, and it shows that the writer is able to explain something well and was able to do something surprising.
The BEST SoP
The best SOPs are ones where I learn something from reading them
(my take) Interesting, I thought my failed startup and industry xp is bad, but see this for conclusion of a good SoP (the story of my SoP is making tech/science more available by closing the gap between experts creators and non-expert users; See also my recent feeling about me doing master’s):
Having solid technical background in a particular area can help and be very useful, and if the area someone writes about is the area they are wanting to work in that its important that the statement gets across that they have good understanding of something in the area. What is common, but doesn’t work well, is when someone writes that they have a strong interest in working in area X, but don’t write anything that shows that they have curiosity to learn about X or have put any effort into doing work in X.