beatsbydre

So I am applying for PhD programs and I was looking at potential research advisers at different institutes. From current graduate students at my school, I got the idea that I should not be contacting professors before being admitted to the program unless I have a very specific question about their research. I came across this one professor and I am really interested in working with them and their website says the following: "Students interested in joining the Imaging and Computing group for a Ph.D. thesis must formally apply to a graduate program. In addition, it helps if you signal your interest to in October or November of the year preceding the start date." Does this mean that this professor is encouraging applicants to email them prior to applying? I don't want to jeopardize my chances of working with them and I don't want to annoy them so I was wondering what this forum thinks about email them. Sorry if the answer is in plain sight and I sound paranoid I would still appreciate your input

Undergrad Institution: Big State School Major: Mathematics Minor: Computer Science GPA: 3.8 Graduating: 2019 Awards: Scholarships from department Type of Student: International SE Asian Female Relevant Courses: Calculus I-II (A), Multi (A-), DiffEq/Linear Algebra(A-), Prob/Statistics (B+), Numerical Analysis I-II (A), Coding Theory (A-), Number Theory Seminar (A), Intro to Programming (B+), Data Structures & Program Design (B-), Discrete Math (A) In Progress: Abstract Algebra I-II, Mathematical Logic, Real Analysis I-II, Advanced Algorithms, Machine Learning GRE: (will take mid October) GRE Subject Math: (taking 9/15 for the first time) (PS: Looking at the practice tests I have taken I hope to score ~50%ile , spooky ) Programs Applying: Computational and Applied Math PhD Research Experience: - Will work with Numerical Analysis for senior thesis - REU in Combinatorics and Graph Theory (Summer, 2018): Will present at JMM and paper in progress, hopefully will be on arXiv before applications are due - Researched mathematical ecology for 2 years at an Ecology Lab - Did a short exploratory project at a Natural Language Processing lab - Unrelated social science research from when I was an econ major Teaching Experience: -Tutoring athletes in Calculus -TA for intro to college-type course Recommendation Letters: -REU mentor fosho, they're from a small state school -Coding Theory professor who is pretty well known in cryptology research and knows me well from the course -Algebra professor who is also well known -Numerics research mentor Coding/Scripting Experience: I have classes in Python and Java, have worked a lot with Python in research projects. The REU involved extensive coding in latex. Other: women in math club, several leadership activities, writes extensively about equity in math/STEM education, >5 research presentations outside of my own school Research Interests: Computational and Applied Math (Data Science, ML) or Mathematical/Computational Biology (Genomics) or Numerical Analysis. I'm broadly just applying to Applied Math Programs Schools of Interest: TOP CHOICE: -NYU -Stanford CAM -UChicago CAM -UW Seattle UT Austin MEDIUM CHOICE: -Maryland, CP -Michigan, Ann Arbor -Ohio State - UCLA -Northwestern As of now I have no idea what a safety school would look like with my profile. I would appreciate suggestions for schools. Also, I would not mind working in an Applied Math lab for a year before applying, so if anyone has any suggestions of labs please go ahead (PS: I'm not a national)4 I would also appreciate input on the importance if a good MGRE score and maybe the importance of taking a grad class (I'll probably take one senior spring but if i haaaavvveee to)