Pre-application Professor Emails

[zero_percent_agarose]

Hi all,

I've lurked around for a few weeks now, but this is my first post! A little background: I finished my undergrad in May and am currently working as a lab assistant because I wanted some time without school. I'm now applying for a PhD at a number of programs with professors who are interested in microbial ecology.

I've emailed three professors from three different programs and I haven't gotten a response (it's been a week). I don't think that my emails were particularly problematic. I basically stated my background in a couple of sentences, told them that I'm applying to their PhD program, wrote a couple of sentences saying what part of their research I was interested in, posed some related specific research questions that I had, and closed saying that I was interested in joining their lab and to contact me if they wanted to discuss this more/wanted more information from me. I didn't attach anything and I didn't say anything about my GPA, GREs, awards and honors, etc. Is it a bad sign that it's been a week without a reply? At this point, is it okay to send follow up emails asking if they received my initial email? Am I being too paranoid? The lack of initial responses has killed my enthusiasm for emailing more people and I really would like to know if it seems like I did something wrong in this initial round of emails.

Thanks!

[johndiligent]

I'd wait it out a bit longer and if there's no response, send a similar, but shorter e-mail, without indicating that they didn't respond the first time. My theory is that your e-mail sounds like it may have been long, it is midterm season in some places, and responding to your e-mail may have slipped through the cracks. That said, best if you don't chastise or annoy them for it and just pretend that you've assumed they did not receive it.

Also, given it was all three of them, perhaps you should look at what subject line you're using, your e-mail address, e-mail service, or the name that comes up when you e-mail, just in case it's some kind of a spam filter problem.

[Eigen]

Also, I'll note that you asked them to "contact you if they had any questions". While it may have been implied by the rest of your e-mail that you wanted a response, you didn't really ask for one- you didn't ask if they had room in your lab, etc.

As to your other questions about their research- answering research questions posed by unknown potential grad students falls pretty low on the priority list for most PIs, and as has been noted it's a very busy time of the semester for most.

Also, it's only been a week. I'd wait another week or so, and then just send a simple follow up e-mail-

Something like "I'm sure you've been busy, I just wanted to make sure my last e-mail didn't get lost in the system."

I think lots of people (from what I've seen here) expect way too snappy of replies from professors in general.

[zero_percent_agarose]

Ha, I totally forgot that it was midterm season. Being out of school quickly disconnects you from being aware of those sorts of things. Thanks!