Identifying Professors

[michigan girl]

How many professors should you list on the statement of purpose? Do you list their works and why you want to work for them?

For instance, is listing 5 professors from one department too many for the SOP?

[eisoj5]

On one SOP of mine, I list just one professor with whom I'd be interested in working and what I think about his work. On the other...so far, zero. I need to go back and reassess the faculty. I think five might be pushing it a little bit, especially if their interests are pretty diverse.

[rising_star]

It depends on how similar their interests are and how closely their interests relates to your own.

[gellert]

^ This.

I would also note that in general, I would aim to always list at minimum three POIs in your SOP. You have no way of knowing who is controversial in the department, who might be going on sabbatical or retiring, who is transferring to another school, or who just got denied tenure and is about to leave. Having at least 2-3 people listed in your SOP shows that not only the person, but the department to which you are applying is a really strong fit for you and will help your chances. (Disclaimer: obviously don't just list names at random, make sure they are studying topics salient to your research interests and you would actually want to work with them if accepted.)

Edited September 7, 2011 by gellert

[remenis]

One book on writing graduate apps that I read recommended describing specifically why you want to work with every professor you list - such as listing an article or book of theirs which you had read and which connects to the work you want to do or mentioning that you have seen them speak at a conference (if you have) etc. Given this advice, I think that listing five professors might be too many, since it might be hard to say something personal about each professor and not have it take up too much space in your SOP.

[InquilineKea]

Should I still list more than 1 professor if I've already contacted one and if I already know that he's taking new grad students?

(also, not only did I contact them, but I also personally talked with them, and my research interests are very similar to theirs).

But it's also possible that they could change their mind *or* that I might be competing with another applicant for the same professor. Does that often happen?

[ktel]

I would just list one. I tailored my SOP for one school very specifically to the one professor I had spoken with, yet I still had several other professors contact me about my application after I submitted it.

[gellert]

I say definitely still list more than one. You don't know if that one professor you contacted is popular in the dept or the guy everyone hates. Also, listing >1 POI in your SOP makes you seem like a better fit for the dept/school as a whole, not just for this one prof. I say list at least three, minimum. Some schools even require you to list three (e.g., Stanford).

Edited September 29, 2011 by gellert

[isb100]

any advice on adding professors who i am interested in working with in my personal statement? I've been trying to research professors from certain schools, but the school website gives limited info...should I contact the professors by phone/email?

[ktel]

any advice on adding professors who i am interested in working with in my personal statement? I've been trying to research professors from certain schools, but the school website gives limited info...should I contact the professors by phone/email?

If you need more information, yes. Just make sure you do as much research as you can first (for example you could look up papers written by these professors) and ask intelligent questions in your email or phone call.

[Eigen]

I would go with listing more than 1. I'm a fan of 2-4, depending on the size of the school- the larger the department, the more you want to mention. As discussed above, however, I'd make sure you talk about exactly *why* you want to work with them- mention specific aspects of their work, recent papers, etc. that make you feel you would fit well with them. Otherwise, you're just mentioning names. This goes along with the advice that you shouldn't apply to a school unless there are at least 3 faculty members you're interested in working with.

Mentioning only 1 professor in your SoP can make the school think you're a risky admission- you only are interested in working with a single faculty member, and if that somehow doesn't work out, you'll be an unhappy and unproductive graduate student.

Even if you've already contacted a faculty member, things can still not work out- you might like their research, but personalities might crash. They might have less funding than you were expecting. You might really not get along with other group members. There might be someone else that starts the same year as you that they end up wanting to take on more! Heck, something might even happen in their family or with their health that causes them to take a sabatical or early retirement. If you're only interested in working with a single person, you've painted yourself into a corner, and that's not a good thing.

In reference to contacting faculty:

I found that it was quite useful to read the last ~5-10 years of papers of faculty I was interested in. The more recent papers give a better feel for what they're doing currently, but keep in mind that publications are usually a year or more behind the actual work that the lab is currently doing. As you read through the papers, come up with areas tangential to the work that you'd be interested in- PIs will want students who can identify new projects related in area and type to what they've already done (and are so covered under their funding), but uniquely different than past work they've done. Once you know what they've worked on previously, you can ask about new directions for that work, etc.

Edited October 5, 2011 by Eigen

[1Q84]

Here's something that's been stumping me: I've had luck contacting some POIs at one particular school, but others have not returned emails. I've been advised on other parts of the board to leave those people alone, if they don't answer.

One super frustrating thing is that this department's website is woefully lacking (lots of professors don't list any interests, specialties, courses, etc. just a phone number and email). My google-fu has mostly failed: I was able to track down some papers and conference presentations but not enough.

So how do tailor an SOP to this school if you can't even figure out which professors are even in your field? I've also read it can be really poisonous to mention a prof if you haven't actually contacted them yet.

[Adelaide]

ponponpon, that is a tough situation. Maybe you could contact the chair of that department, and ask about the work of their colleagues, possibly bump you up on their priority list in their email inbox; OR contact a dean that is linked with the graduate school student issues. I assume the dean knows all the faculty, and though he/she may not know the ins and outs of the faculty's research, they might be able to increase your chances of talking to or finding out about the work of those professors.

While I don't think you should mention professors whose work you don't know, I don't see how it's bad to mention professors you haven't personally talked with. Not everybody everywhere will necessarily get back to you, and you still need to talk about them and why you might want to work with them! (Then again, I could be totally wrong.)

What I have heard from multiple professors from various universities about applying to grad school is do not rely on one professor in that department. People have said it multiple times here, but I guess I want to emphasize it. Even though a professor may say they are definitely taking students, millions of unexpected things could happen during your time with that professor, especially at a long PhD program. One professor I talked to mentioned the death of another professor, which was of course very sad in itself, but also left her PhD students left with no one to carry them through.

[1Q84]

Thanks for the advice! Good idea, contacting the dean may be my best shot. The last email I sent to the chair of the dept went unanswered so... I don't know if I should push that one. Strange enough, the chair of the dept said to contact one professor who she said "contributed a lot of important work to your field of interest" yet I did extensive research on his CV and publications and all his work is from the period right before mine. I guess that's somewhat related?

I've definitely got 3 professors per letter, at least. I hope it's enough!

[fuzzylogician]

Thanks for the advice! Good idea, contacting the dean may be my best shot. The last email I sent to the chair of the dept went unanswered so... I don't know if I should push that one. Strange enough, the chair of the dept said to contact one professor who she said "contributed a lot of important work to your field of interest" yet I did extensive research on his CV and publications and all his work is from the period right before mine. I guess that's somewhat related?

Whoa, contacting deans and chairs for information about professors in your field? I'm not sure that would be appreciated by the dean or the professors. Look, it's August, people are out of town and may not answer their email promptly. Contacting deans seems like skipping like 5 steps in trying to find information about a professor, and doesn't even sound like a good 5th step. What do you expect the dean to do? Contact the professor and ask them to reply to your email? That will make you memorable for all the wrong reasons. If you can't find enough publications by these professor online (not even citations?) then maybe this is not a school that really fits your interests. If it was recommended to you by a professor, go back and ask them why and who to look at. Ask them to recommend papers. You could also try and contact the admin staff at the department to ask whether the prof has a website you didn't find, and then the DGS to say you're interested in the program - describe your interests and ask who might be a good fit for that. You can mention that you've been having a hard time finding information online. Keep in mind in doing all this that it's the summer and people could be slow. If you don't hear back from anyone I would stop trying for now, and resume about 2 weeks after the semester starts. By that time everyone will be back and not swamped with beginning-of-semester work.

I also don't think it's terrible to mention people in your SOP who you didn't contact ahead of time, but that may be field-specific. I never contacted anyone so everyone I mentioned in all my SOPs (in the order of 20ish, total) were people I had no prior contact with. It didn't hurt me one bit. I went for 2-3 profs per department. If you have 3 profs, that sounds like a good number.

[1Q84]

Well, that brings me to another point: how often can one "bother" a graduate chair? I don't want to have this endless chain of emails because she has already stopped responding to my last email which was a month ago. But I guess that's probably because of what you say about preparing for the semester. I shall wait!

[ANDS!]

Why are you attracted to the school in the first place? OVerall good program? I listed all of 0 people in my SOP and instead focused on what my interests were; I made sure "overall" that the program met my interest needs and that eventually I'd be paired with a suitable advisor.

The HARD sciences I can see not being really able to do this, because - it seems - a lot of their PhD work revolves around actually working in a lab with an interested proffesor.

As an English major you should have latitude in this. If you have the persons name, yo u can probably look up their research interests by seeing if they have any publications or indirect mentions.

I'm really curious how you were drawn to this place without a good online resource in place by the school.

[1Q84]

Why are you attracted to the school in the first place? OVerall good program? I listed all of 0 people in my SOP and instead focused on what my interests were; I made sure "overall" that the program met my interest needs and that eventually I'd be paired with a suitable advisor.

The HARD sciences I can see not being really able to do this, because - it seems - a lot of their PhD work revolves around actually working in a lab with an interested proffesor.

As an English major you should have latitude in this. If you have the persons name, yo u can probably look up their research interests by seeing if they have any publications or indirect mentions.

I'm really curious how you were drawn to this place without a good online resource in place by the school.

It's not ideal, but geography plays into it. I have my partner to consider, etc. However, it's also a really good program and the professors that I'm trying to research are listed as Renaissance lit specialists and I like the interdisciplinary focus of their department. They also have strength in queer lit, despite being a Catholic school, which I also like.

My only problem is that despite extensive googling, quick glosses of Prof. P's papers pop up all of twice, whereas her name pops up plenty of times in grants, scholarship listings, etc. It's frustrating to say the least and she didn't respond to my email. Neither did Prof. V, who's papers (glosses, again) pop up only once or twice as well. I even went to my alma mater's (gigantic) online library database and her dissertation was listed but not stored. GAH!

Edited August 12, 2012 by ponponpon

[Adelaide]

I'm sorry, fuzzylogician is right, it's not a good look. What I will say if you are very invested in finding out about that department, I will say if it's been many months of silence would I suggest contacting higher-ups. And definitely don't call out a specific professor for not replying. I would just express your interests/specialty, describe your efforts to find information and ask for a connection. By "bump you up on the email list" I wasn't talking about asking people to put in a good word just because you want it, but present yourself as an exciting candidate that they will want to talk about. Or...poop on this too, but I don't think that's outrageous...

Edited August 14, 2012 by Adelaide

[1Q84]

Yeah, I'm going to give it some time. I'm told this (and most of summer) is the dead period when you're not supposed to email profs. I'll give it one more shot in the middle of September and then let it go!