(Not) Contacting Potential Advisors

[papillon]

Hi everyone. Thank you in advance for your help.

I am applying to English PhD programs, to begin in Fall 2011, and I have not contacted any professors at the schools I am applying to and was not planning on it. Having read several posts by people who have contacted specific potential advisors, I'm now feeling nervous that I will be at a disadvantage. I was under the impression that contacting professors was only necessary in the sciences, and since I did not have one very specific person I wanted to work with at each school, I just thought I would leave that for the "fit" paragraph of my SOP. Any opinions on this? Have I seriously hurt my chances of being accepted to a program? And if so, is it too late at this point to contact anyone? I'm assuming that would have been done over the summer. Thanks very much for your input.

[Strangefox]

Hi everyone. Thank you in advance for your help.

I am applying to English PhD programs, to begin in Fall 2011, and I have not contacted any professors at the schools I am applying to and was not planning on it. Having read several posts by people who have contacted specific potential advisors, I'm now feeling nervous that I will be at a disadvantage. I was under the impression that contacting professors was only necessary in the sciences, and since I did not have one very specific person I wanted to work with at each school, I just thought I would leave that for the "fit" paragraph of my SOP. Any opinions on this? Have I seriously hurt my chances of being accepted to a program? And if so, is it too late at this point to contact anyone? I'm assuming that would have been done over the summer. Thanks very much for your input.

I think it's better to contact your potential advisors and I don't think it's late at this point. Contact one of the professors you would like to work with at each school. You are going to mention some professors in your fit paragraph, right? So contact one of them. You can introduce yourself and ask if they are going to take graduate students next year. If you have read their works or want to use their approach, mention it. If you have a research project, mention it too. You might find out that some schools are not a good fit for you and save time and money. Some professors may give you great advice.

Just do not send letters too late. I believe contacting professors too close to the deadline will make it look like you have begun working on applications too late, that you are not very serious or not well organized...

[LJK]

I just emailed some potential advisors yesterday. I had been meaning to for a while now but didn't want to start a conversation when I didn't know all that much about each person yet. (In case anything turned into a conversation rather than just that introductory email).

I have already received 5 out of 8 responses, all reasonably favorable:

2 wow you sound cool

1 looking forward to your app

1 you sound cool but I'm on sabbatical... but you should apply to work with this other person in my department

1 sure apply but my lab is going in a direction that seems to be different from your interests

So already I have eliminated all the work of applying to one school where they aren't continuing a line of research I'm interested in, and when applying to one particular school I know to tailor it to a specific faculty member that I may have had as backup rather than primary. Also, the 2 wow you sound cool professors are people that were not at the top of my list but now I will probably concentrate on a bit harder on the apps for those schools since they are interested in me, giving me a better shot of having more options come decision time.

You can get useful information out of the brief emails and perhaps even start up a email exchange that will make you stand out as an applicant (I will probably keep talking to the 2 wow you sound cool profs).

Email! Its a bit nerve-racking to send a paragraph or two to make a first impression but it can be very helpful.

[adaptations]

Although this can be valuable, especially in the sciences where you need a specific advisor or want to work in a specific lab, I wouldn't worry about it too much in English. Although you can gain interesting insights into programs, the reality is that you have no idea who will be on the admissions committee this year, so there is a good chance whomever you email will not be involved in the decision process. Second, having worked for some very busy professors, I sympathized with them every fall when their email boxes filled up with potential students wanting to contact them with very generic questions that would best be answered by an administrator. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I think your application should speak for itself (again - I am not referring to hard sciences or places where you want to work in a specific lab)

[strokeofmidnight]

Hi everyone. Thank you in advance for your help.

I am applying to English PhD programs, to begin in Fall 2011, and I have not contacted any professors at the schools I am applying to and was not planning on it. Having read several posts by people who have contacted specific potential advisors, I'm now feeling nervous that I will be at a disadvantage. I was under the impression that contacting professors was only necessary in the sciences, and since I did not have one very specific person I wanted to work with at each school, I just thought I would leave that for the "fit" paragraph of my SOP. Any opinions on this? Have I seriously hurt my chances of being accepted to a program? And if so, is it too late at this point to contact anyone? I'm assuming that would have been done over the summer. Thanks very much for your input.

I'd recommend taking a look at this thread:

or this more recent version:

In short, "contacting faculty" varies drastically from department to department. From what I understand, it's normal--even expected--in certain sciences. It's quite unusual for English, and (from my experience) tends to against applicants who don't know what they are doing. (General rule of thumb: if you have to ask whether or not you should contact professors, or what questions you should ask while contacting professors in this field--don't do so). The vast majority of the successful applicants (now in top-ranked English PhD programs) that I know of did not contact professors.

It's worth noting...the norms for applicants vary DRASTICALLY from field to field, and I'd be very cautious about looking to science applicants for a model. They may be extremely well versed on what works for their field, but immitating their approach might seem naive to professors in your field.

[papillon]

Thank you to everyone for your advice, I really appreciate it. I was leaning toward not contacting professors, partly because I felt like it was giving them extra and unnecessary work and partly because I just wasn't sure what to say and didn't want to say something dumb. I think that, since I don't have any specific questions, I'm going to stick to that plan. Hopefully my SOP will speak for itself. I appreciate all the different perspectives; the variety of opinions makes me think that contacting professors can be a good thing or a bad thing, so I'm just going to do what I'm most comfortable with personally. Which is not contacting professors. Thanks again!

Edited October 10, 2010 by papillon