*When* to contact prospective advisors

[Alaskah]

I saw some threads on here talking about what you should say in an e-mail to a prospective advisor. I am looking for when the best time is for them? I posted this question in another thread but I doubt many will see it.

I won't be applying to doctorate programs until next year, so I've got some time to plan. I know professors get a lot of mail going into the fall admissions process. But I've also heard that the summer months can be bad because they travel more or have other things going on.

Assuming my e-mail is well thought out and directed at the specific prof (and therefore more likely to get a response than a poorly-tailored/mass e-mail), when is the best time to begin contacting professors? I would think having a few e-mails here and there throughout the year receive more personalized responses than the 200+ they get in the fall. But I could be wrong. Does anyone have any insights into this?

I will not likely contact all professors...just certain ones to see how certain aspects of their research are progressing, since recent published articles were actually written 1-2+ years ago. And the study itself could be even older.

Edited November 5, 2011 by Alaskah

[ktel]

I think I contacted professors in November and got timely responses from all of them. They are usually not travelling, past the busy beginning part of the term, past midterms, and pre-finals. Otherwise you could contact at a similar time in the Winter semester (around March). Summer can be busy for a lot of profs as they are travelling to a lot of conferences and some just tend to relax otherwise.

[Sigaba]

My two cents are these.

Develop a plan that sees you up to speed with the career paths and works of your persons of interest and initiate communication this coming February. By starting the communication sooner rather than later, you position yourself and the POI to have an actual dialog and you afford yourself an opportunity for growth.

[kyjin]

I contacted a few profs in late October and got timely responses for both of them. One set up a skype interview with me soon after (I was in Japan at the time), and the other forwarded my mail to another professor who was able to meet with me in Tokyo soon after. Obviously you can expect such results with all profs, but the timing seemed to go well for me.

[NoMoreABD]

Here's my own experience: I know it's always best to start as soon as possible in order to establish a real dialogue. But sometimes you aren't really available and I think its worth to wait until you have time to find a good match. I started contacting POIs in August, and it has been a rather good experience. Most of them replied immediately. I waited until I had a good idea of what I'm going to write in my SOP, and I was also waiting to start a volunteering project I wanted to tell them about. It was worth it, because my emails had better contents than if I started sending them sooner. Eventually I got some very enthusiastic responses (hmm... we'll see how successful this process was only when I start getting answers on my apps )

So I guess, like everything else, it requires balance. Do it early, but don't hurry. If you need to wait to have something more substantial to base the relationship on, then it's worth waiting.

[Alaskah]

Thank you for all of your feedback. I certainly did not expect to contact anyone soon, since I am still searching out programs. I do plan to start drafting my SoP soon, perhaps after Thanksgiving but before the holiday rush so I can set it aside and go back to it later. I think my fear about contacting profs too early would be if they did want to interview or chat on the phone or something, I wouldn't be prepared. So I was thinking either after the spring semester or before the fall semester, so perhaps the middle of August sounds good.

I am hoping to gain more research experience this year by volunteering my time to some profs in the marketing area, so I would want to be able to talk about that experience as well. I am normally a chronic procrastinator, so I want to work out a solid timeline of when things will get done in the next year.

[peonie]

Hi everyone,

Elsewhere on gradcafe, I was reading that English professors may not want you to contact them at all. Has anyone else heard of this mysterious rule? Or maybe someone in the humanities can expand on it...

Thanks so much.

[Sigaba]

I think my fear about contacting profs too early would be if they did want to interview or chat on the phone or something, I wouldn't be prepared. So I was thinking either after the spring semester or before the fall semester, so perhaps the middle of August sounds good.

A prying question: In your view, what constitutes being prepared for such a discussion?

I am asking because I have a growing concern that many members of this BB are psyching themselves out when they could be psyching themselves up when it comes to communicating with professors either as writers of LoRs or as potential PoIs.