dissatisfiedsocrates

Funny enough, I've been trying to get myself to do just the opposite: to pick a date when i can resume looking at Grad Cafe. From looking at all the Grad Cafe survey results in past years, there is no way that I will hear from any of my schools until late January. In the interest of my sanity, I've tried to ban myself from looking at Grad Cafe until some reasonable date like Jan 20th. Yet, here I am...there's no escaping this forum really.

I'm sure that once your SO starts applying to schools and getting acceptances, you'll have a strong gut feeling about what you want to do. A year ago my SO (of 3+ years) got a tenure-track position across the country from where we were both living. I had been planning to wait a year before moving out with him, but as soon as I heard the news I realized that I wouldn't be happy without moving too. Now I'm applying to PhD programs, but only ones that are in the area (I lucked out that there are a lot of great programs close by). We'll be in another crossroads in ~4 years when he's up for tenure and I'm on the job market. Even though I'm neurotic about almost everything, I'm not really worried by it. There are a lot of opportunities like post-doc, non-tenure track, and lecturing that can give more flexibility in where we end up. Plus, it's great incentive to be the best grad student I can be; it ultimately makes life a lot easier if you have a lot of job offer choices.

When I started applying, I was advised that contacting professors is not a necessary step (potentially not a huge advantage in admissions), but was helpful in a few ways. The most helpful factor - although potentially too late at this point for most applicants - is figuring out if a potential advisor is even planning on taking students in the next year. This can help you cater your SOP to relevant faculty. The second way is putting your name out there so that the professor has an intro to you and can look for your applicant if she is interested in you based on your correspondence. Faculty members need to sort through a great deal of applications, and this may help you avoid getting lost in the shuffle. Having said that, I doubt that not contacting professors would hurt you - I don't think anyone who chooses not to take this path should be too freaked at hurting their chances for admissions. Besides, contact through email that comes of as poorly written could actually leave the professor with a worse impression than no email at all.