Interpreting POI's responses

[JoyJoy]

I emailed potential POIs 3 weeks ago. Only 2 replied, one said she won't take new students and recommended another prof I should contact.

Another said "I will take one student, but I will only interview those who are shortlisted, look forward to reviewing your application"

What do you guys think about the second prof's response?

Overall. I was a little bit disappointed because 1) 5 profs did not respond at all; 2) I was kind of hoping they would say something like you seem to be a strong applicant etc...

[PsycUndergrad]

15 minutes ago, JoyJoy said:

I emailed potential POIs 3 weeks ago. Only 2 replied, one said she won't take new students and recommended another prof I should contact.

Another said "I will take one student, but I will only interview those who are shortlisted, look forward to reviewing your application"

What do you guys think about the second prof's response?

Overall. I was a little bit disappointed because 1) 5 profs did not respond at all; 2) I was kind of hoping they would say something like you seem to be a strong applicant etc...

There’s no need to be disappointed. Professors are super busy, and they get tons of emails from prospective students. They also don’t know what kind of applicants they get until they review them; you might be a strong applicant, but the profs don’t want to encourage you too much when they don’t know how you’ll compare to everyone else.  

Try not to read too much into emails, you’ll make yourself crazy  Each professor communicates differently, and they don’t have time to carefully consider their responses. 

[ResilientDreams]

It's also getting to the time when they're probably receiving lots of emails from potential students, so that could be playing into it too.

[Oshawott]

A lot of profs either don't have time to respond or don't want to bias their impressions of applicants due to familiarity so they have canned responses (likely Prof #2) so I wouldn't look into it.

[BeezKnees]

Honestly a lot of profs dont even look at anything you attach to emails as they dont want to bias their application process. If you were a strong applicant, most profs will never say so. Most have a very generic email that they paste to the many students that contact them. Basically, I wouldnt read into it at all!