POI Enquiry Emails

[hippyscientist]

I've sent out enquiry emails to all the lecturers in all the schools that do what I want to study for my PhD (it's a niche area but not too niche but there's not millions!) and heard back positive responses from three. However, there are a few more schools I really want to interact with before submitting applications as my field requires an advisor to admit you.

 

What's the general etiquette for sending another email introducing yourself & your research interests? How long should I wait? It's been about 2 months since the last. I don't want to sound like I'm bugging them but equally don't want to get lost in the pile of emails received daily. Ideally I'd phone but the time difference and intl. costs aren't in my favour!!

 

 

[fuzzylogician]

Two months is definitely long enough to wait. I'd forward the original email with some text to effect that "maybe you didn't get my last email so I'm emailing again." Do it Monday midday or Tuesday morning, after they've had time to deal with email from the weekend and last week. There is a better chance for your email to be noticed and not drowned out by other noise that way. It is the summer vacation so it's entirely possible that emails get lost or ignored, if the prof is not reading email while they are away from their office; this tends to mean you have to attend to a huge pile of emails when you're back, which can lead to lower priority emails getting pushed back and eventually forgotten (this is not a good excuse, but it does happen). If you don't hear back again, I'd wait until the school year begins and email roughly two weeks into the semester, after the the craziness of the new year is generally over and people settle into a routine. At that point if you don't hear back and there is no reason to suspect the person isn't reading their email, I might take that as a sign to move on.  

[hippyscientist]

Thanks fuzzylogician. That was sort of my thought, I am one of these super organised people so I would love to have everything lined up before I go back to school but I know that's completely unrealistic. It's good to get my thoughts confirmed. Thank you!