Contacting Professor of Interest.

[Glossed]

The application of one program to which I am applying has a section to list the professors with whom you have had contact. Is this merely a way for them to decide which professor will give your application the first read? If so, it seems redundant with the POS listed in your personal statement.

Any thoughts on contacting (via email, most likely) potential professors prior to applying? If that is a good idea, what is the best way to open the dialogue short of "I want to study with you"? Thanks!

Edited October 15, 2010 by Glossed

[amarantha]

haven't read the threads linked by inafuturelife, but i'll just say that yes, yes, yes, this is a good idea, and can definitely improve your chances of acceptance. just briefly introduce yourself and explain what you hope to study, and then maybe think of a couple of simple questions about the program or their work. (not questions that will be a hassle for them to answer, but just something cursory to serve as an "excuse" for emailing them, something along the lines of "are there currently many grad students working in the field of ____?" or "are there opportunities for interdisciplinary work in the ____ department?" ...that kind of thing.)

of course, before you email them it's important to 1) have a clear idea of what you want to study and 2) be familiar with their work.

[strokeofmidnight]

haven't read the threads linked by inafuturelife, but i'll just say that yes, yes, yes, this is a good idea, and can definitely improve your chances of acceptance. just briefly introduce yourself and explain what you hope to study, and then maybe think of a couple of simple questions about the program or their work. (not questions that will be a hassle for them to answer, but just something cursory to serve as an "excuse" for emailing them, something along the lines of "are there currently many grad students working in the field of ____?" or "are there opportunities for interdisciplinary work in the ____ department?" ...that kind of thing.)

of course, before you email them it's important to 1) have a clear idea of what you want to study and 2) be familiar with their work.

I'm curious why you would suggest contacting faculty? The links that inafuturelife gives traces our debate on this matter. I think most of us involved--particularly those who fared well in the application process--were more cautious about advising applicants to contact professors. I'd be interested in hearing a strong response for the other side, though I'm hardly impartial. My own experience (both with giving advice and through several rounds of applications) is that the vast majority of candidate who are asking on an internet forum whether or not one should contact professors...are not well positioned to benefit from doing so. It can be rewarding (though I'd argue that unless one has very compelling reason to do so, the returns are not significant enough to warrant the risk--even for applicants who CAN pull it off). However, it requires such a level of finesse, subtlety, and ease with academic protocols that very few applicants have had the opportunity to master it prior to entering a PhD program. As the debate in the threads emphasized, very few professors will actually let you know if you've annoyed them or crossed the (unspoken, variable, and often arbitrary) line. They'll frequently remain polite and professional even they've acquired a negative impression from that email interaction.

Personally, considering our field, the applicant would be contacting someone who is a professional expert at reading in between the lines. A thinly veiled excuse to contact for the sake of getting one's name out there can potentially backfire. Sure, some professors will handle it well and some might even be flattered enough to overlook the potential indiscretion. But from my experience, many of them will be annoyed but are too poised to let that annoyance show through in their response.

Perhaps another way of saying this: I absolutely agree with the two caveats that you noted and would in fact add to them: 3) the applicant should be *quite* familiar with the unspoken academic protocols before attempting to contact faculty. (Personally, I would have ruled myself out with the final caveat, despite having been a graduate student for two years during my most recent round of applications. I know professors [at least mine] too well to take that risk).

Edited October 17, 2010 by strokeofmidnight

[diehtc0ke]

Just to second strokeofmidnight's post, I'm also not so sure that contacting professors will definitely be beneficial even if you do take heed of the three caveats that have been presented. I know we're not professors but the first-years in my program (including me) have already received inquisitive emails from people who will be applying and across the board if we weren't turned off by the presumptuous tone of the e-mails or their timing (one came several weeks before the term had even begun), we just weren't interested in starting correspondences with random people while starting graduate school and taking four seminars. This isn't to say that we were callous and unhelpful (I did respond even to the letter that I got in early August) and most likely this was just a particularly bad set of messages but it definitely put bad tastes in our mouths and I'm not sure how responsive I will be in the future. I'm sure more than a handful of professors feel similarly. Academics are a notoriously fickle bunch with elephantine memories (in many though not all cases) so unless you truly have a burning question that must be answered before you can fathom applying to the program, I would tread cautiously.