Question about Contacting Professors

[frozendry]

I'm currently pursuing a Masters in Comparative Lit & Cultural Studies and planning to apply to phd. programs in the same area (well, in Literature, English, Lit Theory and Cultural Studies). I've been advised by a couple of people to write to the professors at the schools in which I'm interested

Comments

[circumfession]

This may be helpful. All of these links are specific to English applicants. I'd be slightly wary of following advice from other disciplines, since this procedure varies WIDELY from field to field. It's virtually mandatory for some fields, and quite unusual for others. (English leans towards the latter). The semi-consensus seems to be unless you have absolutely compelling reasons to contact a professor, don't do it. It can hurt you as much (or more) as it might help, and is absolutely not necessary. For it's worth, most of the commentators in gradcafe forums who suggested that one should not contact professors got into multiple top programs.

http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/14557-contacting-professor-of-interest/\
http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/14402-contacting-profs-as-ma-not-phd-applicant/
http://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/12432-how-soon-to-contact-potential-professors/

You might also want to check out WGI_lounge. We covered this issue in either 2010 or 2011, though much of it reiterates the commentary in gradcafe.

http://community.livejournal.com/wgi_lounge_2009/profile
(subsitute 2010 and 2011 for the most recent and current iterations). WGI is also an English-grad-school-specific community.

[_theplague]

I'm thinking of having those links copy-and-pasteable in a Word document since this question comes up so often. On that note, and as another current English grad student in a top program, I'm in complete agreement with circumfession. Unless you have a sincerely valid question about a program or how it operates that is not answered on the website, I'd really be cautious about sending out e-mails to professors. The payoff would be minimal at best and can leave a terrible taste in the mouth of a potential adcom member at worst.