Professor I wanted to work with mentioned in letters of recommendation

[Lilac13]

I am facing a bit of a dilemma. I reached out to a POI a month or so ago to see if I could speak with her about her research in the program. I never heard anything back from her (from what I understand this is actually quite common), so I proceeded with my application. I did as much research as I could pertaining to her work and made the decision that I would apply to work with her. I even told my letter writers about her and the program. All of my letters of recommendation have been submitted and I believe each writer mentioned her name in my letters for this particular school. Fast forward a few weeks, I heard back from the POI today (she was out on maternity leave) and she informed me that she thought my work may be better aligned with the work of a new professor in their department. I did some research on this other professor and actually do see a better fit (although I do think there is still considerable overlap between the original POI). The problem is, my recommendation letters mention my desire to work with the original POI and the university does not allow the letters to be resubmitted. How big of a problem do you think this will be? Any thoughts about what I can do at this point?

Thanks!

[lilgreycells]

I'm not sure if there's anything you can do at this point if they do not allow resubmission. If you haven't already submitted the application you can just make sure the section of your statement where you talk about potential POIs includes the new person you would want to work with. If you've already submitted maybe you just want to include in an email back to her that you thank her for pointing you in this new faculty member's direction and, while you've already submitted your application, you would definitely be interested in working with him/her. And I don't really think it'll be that big of an issue for the faculty. I know some of the people on the adcomms for two of the schools you mentioned applying to in the Education area and I know they'll be fine with it.

Good luck!

[Lilac13]

I'm not sure if there's anything you can do at this point if they do not allow resubmission. If you haven't already submitted the application you can just make sure the section of your statement where you talk about potential POIs includes the new person you would want to work with. If you've already submitted maybe you just want to include in an email back to her that you thank her for pointing you in this new faculty member's direction and, while you've already submitted your application, you would definitely be interested in working with him/her. And I don't really think it'll be that big of an issue for the faculty. I know some of the people on the adcomms for two of the schools you mentioned applying to in the Education area and I know they'll be fine with it.

Good luck!

Thanks!

[lilgreycells]

Always glad to help. Let me know if you ever feel have questions about Harvard or Vandy!