Information about Emailing Professors
By Yonatan Bisk
(my take) Note
I think this guide has been written dominantly for students in the US, or more tier-1 (globally famous groups). Specifically, almost every students finds their advisors through cold email, where going to conferences, having multiple internships or having direct contact in committees seems prevalent. This is not the case at all for non-EU, NA, East Asia countries. (I have been reading and having discussions with tone of people and almost all of them agree that you must cold email A LOT and in fact it was the only way they did it. 1)
Why you should email professors
Success in academia, like many aspects of society, is often a function of who you know and networking. Students of famous professors don’t need to email because they know their applications will get read carefully. If you don’t fit this description, as many of us don’t,
- How are you supposed to break into the “in-group”?
- How is someone from a smaller lab, a different discipline, or an underrepresented group supposed to change the field?
They have to email. They have to take the chance of getting no reply to at least put themselves out there. If this is you, please email me and everyone else.
Why is your email being ignored?
A professor likely is reading your email while eating lunch, on the bus on the way home, or at night when they are trying to figure out what they forgot to do today. So, a useful exercise might be to ask yourself:
- How much time does it take to reply to the email I’m sending?
- Is this email actually a DOS attack? i.e. did it take me much less time to write than it will for them to reply?
Tailored “please accept me - we do similar work” email — Potentially balanced:
- We still can’t promise anything, we still have to investigate funding, you still need to apply and we still will go through your application and recommendation letters in detail.
- You brought up a specific intersection in our research and yours. This requires substantially less homework for us to say something helpful and even if we don’t end up working together now, hopefully, we’ll cross paths and learn from each other in the future.
Who should I email?
[Ideally] people you have an existing relationship with.
- Did we meet at a conference/workshop/summer-program/etc? Remind me/us
- If there’s a specific PI you are looking to impress — your letter writer can also email them/us
- No existing relationship? See next question about being an outsider
If you’re feeling discouraged, see initial list of people who should email me regardless :)
Should I ask for a meeting?
Ask for a meeting? It doesn’t hurt to ask, but meetings take even longer than emails so — see time issues above.
Meeting at a conference? Great idea! At a conference our schedule is already cleared for talks and social events so it’s /much/ easier to find time to meet with prospective students.
Success
Success in academia, like many aspects of society, is often a function of who you know and networking
I am an outsider
That’s 100% fine, and you should say that. You can indicate where you have tried looking to learn more, and details about your interests. I take no offense to receiving an email, it’s when there’s a request attached to it that things get tricky.
Warning
Gmail sometimes classifies student emails (particularly the fill-in-the-blank form emails) as spam.
Some other cool information:
- Should I do master’s? It depends, but there are two factors that are potentially balancing each other out. 1. More time means ability to get better letters but 2. We compare BS to BS, and MS to MS. So is that MS really going to help or put you even further behind? You have to sort of take this on a case by case basis. If you didn’t get a chance to do research in undergrad, you’ll do as much research in your MS as you can and see where that puts you. That’s the hand life dealt you. If you are a junior who just started research and you could graduate early or get a full year in, I’d recommend taking your time and getting those strong letters. In general, this isn’t a race and nobody is going to check if you were 21 or 22 or 25 or … when you applied. Just how you compare to other people with the same degree and opportunities.
Success
(my take) I always punish myself to studying master’s in my home country. But now I think it was the only way I could do any sort of research. So not only I managed to publish a good research, I also secured two strong recommendation letters.