Include 1 or 2 faculty of interest in your SOP?

[arielskiwi]

Hi everyone, so my question is: Are you including 2 faculty of interest in the SOP or just focusing on 1?

Context -

I was recommended by another person to indicate 2 faculty of interests in SOP as a way of showing good departmental fit. So in my current draft, I included a paragraph discussing how my research interest converges with 2 people in the department. But this limits the depth in which I can elaborate on how our research interests align. For one of the school I'm applying for, 1 of the faculty finally got back to me after my cold-email and expressed that they are  retiring,  so my SOP for this school only had 1 faculty hence it had more content elaborating on how our interests are fitting or what useful skills I can contribute (I've interviewed this PI's current grads to get an idea of their lab direction, so I'm pretty confident about explicitly describing this interest alignment). So now I'm second-guessing myself and considering rewriting the other 4 by focusing on the top 1 faculty I'd like to work with.

Thank you!

 

P.s. All school APPs included a place for me to indicated my faculty of interest so that's still reflected on my application at somewhere, just not my SOP.

[ColoradoGirl94]

I think only include 2 if you really connect with both of the POI's research. It may be beneficial to include more than 1 if you want a broader chance of getting into the program (let's say one doesn't take you but the other is interested in taking you). The other thing is if you mentioned more than 1 faculty member in your application, I would include all of the faculty members in the SOP because they will want to know why you are interested in them and indicated them in your application if that makes sense! But don't put down more than 1 faculty if you truly don't connect with more than one person's research because that would be hurt you more in the long haul!

[justacigar]

Yeah, I agree with @ColoradoGirl94 - I've heard it doesn't benefit or hinder your application to include more than one faculty member. I think it can actually hurt your chances with the faculty member you are most connected with as you won't have space to really show fit. I'm only including one faculty member for all my applications. I think you can show departmental fit in other ways!

[SocDevMum]

Some schools ask you to list a few faculty you would be willing to be matched with - check with each one for specifics.  If they don't ask you to list more than one, I would vote do not, unless you sincerely feel AND can explain how you are a spectacular fit for both/either mentor

[imemine]

At the end of the day, be honest about who interests you-- oftentimes one strong fit is all it takes. You can also say you are primarily interested in working with the one faculty member but that you could envision yourself collaborating with X/Y/Z professors in the department in X/Y/Z ways. I did this in some of my admissions essays, it's one way to show departmental fit without claiming to match equally with multiple primary mentors. 

[PsyZei]

I included at least two, and sometimes three. This was suggested to me by multiple faculty members (and was a good thing, as at one of the places I interviewed I was one of the few interviewees that didn't get a deer in headlights look when handed a piece of paper and asked to list the three faculty we wanted to work with, in order of preference, if we were accepted to the program). In most programs you won't be working exclusively all the time with only one faculty. So they want to know that you will be a good fit for the whole program. I would focus on my main faculty I wanted to work with, and then just add a sentence or two for one or two others to show that I'd done my homework and was interested in the program as a whole. I was invited to interview at 75% of the programs I applied to, so it seemed to work as a strategy well enough ? 

[PsyDuck90]

It's definitely a good idea to have at least 1 other person you can see yourself working with among the faculty. This is especially helpful when your advisor decides to leave the university halfway through your course of study and you need to find a new dissertation chair for the study you've already spent month creating ?‍♀️. 

[t_ruth]

Meet in the middle. Discuss one primary, but then say how you could also see yourself working with X or Y other people and why. This might be especially important if your primary wants to take on an advisee, but they don't have funding...you could be in the running to be advised by your primary and do an assistantship with X or Y.