Should I email every professor that I might want to work with?

[tyther]

I know I should email professors that I want to work with and I should mention some of their recent research in the email but it seems like is might be incredibly overwhelming. Since most schools want you to list 3 faculty members that you wan to work with and I am apply to about 10 grad school this would mean 30 professors whose recent publications I would need to so that I can seem somewhat interested in their work. This comes out to reading close to a hundred papers.

Am I approaching this from the wrong angle? Do I really need to be that involved with my emails?

Edited October 10, 2012 by tyther

[Bearcat1]

What field are you in? Listing 3 faculty members seems like a lot. I would focus on one from each program that you see as your "main" person. Contact them, and I don't think you need to read everything they've ever written. I used the "I'm familiar with your work on blah-blah-blah topic," rather than referring to specific publications, and all the responses were positive. No one "quizzed" me on what I knew about them, either via email or on the phone afterward. After contacting those main faculty members, they may recommend you contact others within their department, but instead of referencing their work, then you'll be able to say, "so-and-so referred me to you" and you'll save yourself tons of reading.

[rising_star]

Yes, you're approaching this from the wrong angle. You don't actually need to read the entire paper. Just read the abstract, intro, methods, and conclusion. Also, you can list faculty that you haven't directly communicated with provided you have one POI that you have communicated with and that you know is accepting students. Good luck!

[ahl389]

I think you're going about it wrong. Firstly, I'd only contact the POI you're most hopeful about, and if you get a dismal response from them, try another in the department. I also wouldn't bother reading much beyond the abstract of a paper, if that. Their bio on the faculty pages should provide you with enough insight about who they are, and if you want to know more, you can ask. A recital of their previous work doesn't really show what you are capable of, how you fit with them, or why they should respond to you. I would probably only bring up a specific paper if it's 100% aligned with your focus.

[Duna]

I think you're going about it wrong. Firstly, I'd only contact the POI you're most hopeful about, and if you get a dismal response from them, try another in the department. I also wouldn't bother reading much beyond the abstract of a paper, if that.

This might be true for certain departments / schools but some schools have ad-coms that decide and your POI, if not coincidentally on the committee this year, might not have a say. It depends whether it's department policy to have students work closely with one faculty or whether they admit promising candidates into the program and advisors are chosen / assigned after the admission process.

If it's the case that you're basically chosen by your POI, then I think you should at least read the abstracts of some recent publications. I think you would not want to appear as if you'd merely skimmed through some webpages.

[ahl389]

This might be true for certain departments / schools but some schools have ad-coms that decide and your POI, if not coincidentally on the committee this year, might not have a say. It depends whether it's department policy to have students work closely with one faculty or whether they admit promising candidates into the program and advisors are chosen / assigned after the admission process.

If it's the case that you're basically chosen by your POI, then I think you should at least read the abstracts of some recent publications. I think you would not want to appear as if you'd merely skimmed through some webpages.

That's probably true, I just don't think professors need or want to hear a lit review of their own work in your initial contact to them. JMO though

[Duna]

No, but I think they will also get a bunch of emails with the same lame "I am really interested in your work on xxxy" which applicants got from the webpage.

If you can come up with: "I am really interested in work xxy, especially the method you used to do xyy and I am intrigued by studying this by combining it with work from yyx on the same topic employing a slightly different methodological approach" then this might appear just a tiny bit more like a motivated and well prepared candiate.

[TMP]

I agree with the above comments. Focus on big ideas and methodologies of the person who you really want to be your adviser. Don't worry about the other faculty members. They'll read your application if you mention their names in your SOP.