Contacting Departments & POIs

[radioalfredio]

I know this topic has been discussed on a lot of the other forums, but I wanted to get the opinion of other linguists.

Should you email a POI or department before/after your application is under consideration? If you do, what should you say?

I've only contacted one department, and that was primarily because it is very close to where I live, and I had the opportunity to speak with some one in person, not via email. Otherwise, I'm pretty nervous about contacting departments and POIs, just because I'm afraid that I'll say something stupid and it won't help my chances.

I know in some disciplines, such as engineering, it's crucial that students contact a POI first. Do you think that it's the same way in linguistics?

Those of you who are already in programs: what did you do? How about other Fall 2012 applicants?

[fuzzylogician]

In the proof-of-existence department, I didn't contact any POIs before or after submitting my apps and still did pretty well in my application cycle.

More generally, it's crucial to contact POIs in fields where the student joins a lab or working group mentored by a certain PI, who in turn directly funds the student. In all the linguistics programs I know, students are funded collectively by the department and not from particular advisors' grants. As such, you don't need to have someone in particular to sponsor you before you even apply. Nonetheless students still have a particular set of POIs in mind who they would like to work with at each school. If you find that one or more are not accepting new students or are leaving, you might reconsider applying there in the first place. That's one main goal of contacting POIs, in my mind, though normally faculty won't tell you that they are leaving before it's already become public knowledge - so there may be other more efficient ways of learning about possible leaves or transfers. Another goal is to try and make a memorable (positive) impression on faculty who are hopefully on the adcom and can influence decisions. That would of course be a positive outcome, but I don't think it's necessary. In linguistics, to the best of my knowledge, the field is still small enough that every application that is submitted receives some level of attention. None are tossed without being given some considerations like in larger fields that get hundreds of apps per year and therefore have strict cutoffs. If you have a strong application, you can do very well without having contacted anyone.

My advice regarding contacting POIs after being admitted to a program changes considerably -- then I encourage as much communication as possible. But I believe that that is not what the question is about, so I won't elaborate.

[radioalfredio]

Thank you again for the great advice. As I looked through past threads, I found similar advice (I believe from you). Still, it's reassuring that I don't necessarily need to make contact to be accepted. And if I get accepted, I might just ask you for some advice about how to contact POIs then.

[psycholinguist]

I would very much recommend it. One of my undergrad professors said that when he hears from prospective grad-students, the names stick in his mind because he knows that those applicants really want to work with him. Letters can be short - something along the lines of:

Dear Professor Z: I am a (student/alumnus) (at/of) (School X) looking into applying to graduate school in linguistics for next September. I am very interested in (subfield) and (topics) and have taken an interest in your work. Are you currently accepting new graduate students for then?

[radioalfredio]

And thank you Psycholinguist!

I decided to email one prof. who I really want to work (of course, I want to work with all of the profs. that I've applied to work with, but I'm more familiar with this prof's work than some of the others, so it made my email easier). Within a day, I received a very nice email about the department and an invitation to talk on the phone. I'm very excited, and it has been a nice boost to my self esteem. Even if this has no bearing on my admissions to the program, it's still good "interview" practice for me.

[fuzzylogician]

And thank you Psycholinguist!

I decided to email one prof. who I really want to work (of course, I want to work with all of the profs. that I've applied to work with, but I'm more familiar with this prof's work than some of the others, so it made my email easier). Within a day, I received a very nice email about the department and an invitation to talk on the phone. I'm very excited, and it has been a nice boost to my self esteem. Even if this has no bearing on my admissions to the program, it's still good "interview" practice for me.

That's great, good luck!

[psycholinguist]

And thank you Psycholinguist!

I decided to email one prof. who I really want to work (of course, I want to work with all of the profs. that I've applied to work with, but I'm more familiar with this prof's work than some of the others, so it made my email easier). Within a day, I received a very nice email about the department and an invitation to talk on the phone. I'm very excited, and it has been a nice boost to my self esteem. Even if this has no bearing on my admissions to the program, it's still good "interview" practice for me.

Yay! I'm delighted to hear it!

[PhDreaming]

When I was applying for the MA I contacted a bunch of professors and the only one that I communicated with was at Colorado (which is where I ended up for my MA). I only applied to two other PhD programs not here at CU and has met the people I wanted to work with at the most recent Linguistics Summer Institute so I didn't e-mail them during the app process. It seems like a fine line to walk but I think generally professors like when people are interested in their work. If you haven't already, Monica Macaulay's book "Surviving Linguistics" has a nice chapter on the application process that mentions this topic.