I'm sorry I'm being unhelpful, but I just wanted to say that your icon is wonderful. It is sort of the credo of hipsterbookclub and its website, which I edit.
1. Unless you had some professors who didn't check their e-mail or didn't use e-mail, e-mail should be a fine way of contacting them. (I mention professors who don't use e-mail because one professor at my undergrad school had been at the school since the 1950s and he never got around to using voice mail or e-mail. If you wanted to talk to him you called him at home in the evening. I always found that odd, but that was what he wanted.)
2. Probably no point in going to one for another program. Most people don't visit schools until they are accepted. If you have questions, ask the graduate coordinator, or the secretary for the program you are applying to. Or ask a professor.
3. Mentioning you've read their research can be a good conversation starter. However, don't go on for too long if your main point in e-mailing them is to ask if they are taking graduate students. Keep your first e-mail short and to the point, you can go into more detail if they write back.
Email is fine for contact, especially if you're working full time. I am 1000 miles from my recommendation writers, and I hadn't seen them in person for a few years. Email it was!
It's okay to send the random emails. I sent some to prospective advisors, and also to a few people who are knowledgeable in my area but in programs that wouldn't suit me to ask for advice on where *they* would go in my shoes, with my interests. :) Be polite, friendly and relatively brief. It's absolutely okay to use current research as a "hook", but don't go on about it.
It is their job to help you out! And surprisingly, some of them enjoy their work enough to want to do it in any case, even if it's a bit intimidating.
1. Email only if you have to. I had to because I graduated and moved away, but I still set appointments with them all for a later date where I could sit down and talk with them about my research interests, which so perfectly correlated with a football weekend. 2. No + most likely that is only for accepted students in the program. 3. Yes, I've sent emails to at least 3 different faculty from each school. About half I never got a reply back, the majority of the rest was a "i'm not accepting students next year but a)screw yourself or b)ask this guy." I did end up getting potential advisors at 2 of my schools, which reminds me I need to send out emails again to the others.
What's your field? In mine (biology) there is no need to e-mail faculty and it probably won't help. Do you believe that a prof would fight for your admission because you voiced interest? Personally, I don't. Are there multiple profs you'd consider working for? They probably won't all be on sabbatical/not taking students at the same time - just discuss your potential advisers in your statement of purpose. Also, the fact that Option B is online schooling suggests that you're going in for a Master's, not a Ph.D....if so, are you sure you need to identify an adviser at all? You might be doing mostly coursework + a thesis that several people are qualified to supervise.
While i'm not in Biology, I am in the sciences and truly do feel that because I contacted a potential advisor early in my application process is one of the reasons why I got in. Mostly because he actually said to me that he'd talk to the graduate coordinator for me. Also I think it's important to list potential advisors in your sop that are actually taking on students. I felt like a HUGE idiot when a graduate coordinator contacted me to let me know that all but one of my listed faculty aren't accepting students, and that I should get in contact with the one that is. Which I had known that from contacting them after my sop was sent. But I still felt pretty dumb.
Comments 12
Reply
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mooreks/graduatehelp.html
Reply
Reply
I nabbed the icon off of photobucket.
Reply
2. Probably no point in going to one for another program. Most people don't visit schools until they are accepted. If you have questions, ask the graduate coordinator, or the secretary for the program you are applying to. Or ask a professor.
3. Mentioning you've read their research can be a good conversation starter. However, don't go on for too long if your main point in e-mailing them is to ask if they are taking graduate students. Keep your first e-mail short and to the point, you can go into more detail if they write back.
Good luck with your application!
Reply
Reply
It's okay to send the random emails. I sent some to prospective advisors, and also to a few people who are knowledgeable in my area but in programs that wouldn't suit me to ask for advice on where *they* would go in my shoes, with my interests. :) Be polite, friendly and relatively brief. It's absolutely okay to use current research as a "hook", but don't go on about it.
It is their job to help you out! And surprisingly, some of them enjoy their work enough to want to do it in any case, even if it's a bit intimidating.
Reply
2. No + most likely that is only for accepted students in the program.
3. Yes, I've sent emails to at least 3 different faculty from each school. About half I never got a reply back, the majority of the rest was a "i'm not accepting students next year but a)screw yourself or b)ask this guy." I did end up getting potential advisors at 2 of my schools, which reminds me I need to send out emails again to the others.
Reply
Reply
Also I think it's important to list potential advisors in your sop that are actually taking on students. I felt like a HUGE idiot when a graduate coordinator contacted me to let me know that all but one of my listed faculty aren't accepting students, and that I should get in contact with the one that is. Which I had known that from contacting them after my sop was sent. But I still felt pretty dumb.
Reply
I think advisers are actually assigned after getting into school.
Reply
Leave a comment