How many POI's are too many?

[PhDreams]

I'm in the middle of rewriting my SOP ...again. >.<

 

And there is one school where I feel like I have multiple fits and would be thrilled to work with many people in that department. In fact, the department is quite large and there are about 6 people that I could easily see myself working with. However, I was thinking of mentioning about 4 and then saying something like I think the whole department is great so as not to shut out possibilities to work with other people. Thoughts? Is that still too many? In my other SOP's I've only mentioned two max.

[biotechie]

I actually didn't mention a POI in my statements of purpose, but most applications asked me elsewhere. If you're worried about mentioning too many people, just mention a couple and then also make sure that you mention interest areas that are specific interests of your own that match those of those extra faculty. Maybe mention that your interests, such as.....""...... parallel with interests of other faculty as well. Then you can explain those interests in whatever way you want to. They'll know some of the interests in the department and be able to see where you fit.

For the schools that asked me for a list of POIs, I gave 10-12. I think it is great that you are finding so many interesting people, but you're right. It might not be wise to name drop too many. Hopefully one of the vets sees this and can give you a better answer.

[OhioStateStudent]

You gave 10-12 POI's? How large were those departments?

 

I also didn't include any POI's. A family member of mine in academia actually suggested against it, because of rivalries among professors. I.e. if you mention professor A, professor B might vote against your application because they do not like professor A. It seems fickle (and it is) but apparently this goes on.

[PhDreams]

I was actually lucky enough to talk to a dept coordinator at one of the schools I am applying to about professors to identify. Not only did he say it was necessary to identify professors but he said it was the only way that you would make it to their reading list. Meaning if you mention them in your SOP, they will read it. Now I'm just wondering how many is too many. I definitely could not see mentioning 10-12 people in one SOP for the kind of departments where I am submitting applications.

 

In the end, I just identified 3 profs and sort of left it open about how my work examines big picture kind of things too.

[ion_exchanger]

I didn't learn of the POI mention in SOP until after I applied to my first school, but luckily I received an interview without it. Thought it was ok because the actual application says to list faculty. Outside of the sciences, I'm sure it's different. Maybe take your very top 3 or 4. I would start by saying that the whole department is outstanding and there are multiple professors who are a great fit. To name just a few...

It's not much, but it's all I got :-)

[TakeruK]

Maybe it's different in the sciences but it would be really strange to have a department with 10-12 people that do work you're interested in. Usually, your interests at the grad school level are refined enough that it wouldn't make sense for a University Department to have hired 10-12 people that do the same thing (unless there are hundreds of faculty at this department or something!).

 

The purpose of mentioning names in a SOP (or elsewhere in an application) is to show that you would be a really good fit for those professors. So if you mention (more than?) half the department, that negates your argument that these people are an especially good fit for you. I wouldn't worry about potentially shutting out some faculty members because you didn't mention their name -- after all, you are applying to these schools because you really want to work with the few people that match your interests really well. 

 

That said, not every incoming graduate student needs to know what they want to do right away. It's definitely possible to get into schools just wanting to study the general field and pick a specific topic later. But if you want to go this route, then there's no point mentioning 10-12 names -- just don't mention any or pick a few that are really interesting to you.

[biotechie]

I didn't mention 10-12 in my Statement of Interest. I actually didn't mention any professors at all. I made sure that my research interests that matched those of the faculty made it into my statement. I made it clear that I had looked over the department faculty and that my interests aligned closely with their interests.

 

Three of my schools actually asked me for a list of professors, and they wanted around 10-15. The departments have about 50-100 professors because I am applying to interdisciplinary programs. So I simply provided a list with my reasoning for selecting each professor because that is what they asked for. I'm sorry that wasn't clear.

[TakeruK]

Three of my schools actually asked me for a list of professors, and they wanted around 10-15. The departments have about 50-100 professors because I am applying to interdisciplinary programs. So I simply provided a list with my reasoning for selecting each professor because that is what they asked for. I'm sorry that wasn't clear.

 

Wow, and here I thought a department of 20-30 faculty is "big", lol. 10-15 out of 50-100 is roughly equivalent to 3-4 out of 20-30, I think. Sorry if my post came off as an attack -- I didn't mean it that way and the reasoning I used was based on the wrong assumption (in your case) that 10-15 profs would make up a majority of the department! I was just trying to convey the idea that one should only name names if they are significantly narrowing down their fields of interest!

[ion_exchanger]

Three of my schools actually asked me for a list of professors, and they wanted around 10-15. The departments have about 50-100 professors because I am applying to interdisciplinary programs. So I simply provided a list with my reasoning for selecting each professor because that is what they asked for. I'm sorry that wasn't clear.

 

I'm similar in one of my prospective graduate programs but it isn't interdisciplinary or an umbrella program. There are about 80 professors in my program and I was asked to list 10. I gave 15, but it could have easily been more. For my case, there are certain techniques that I am interested in using. Many professors use one or more of them to answer different questions in different areas of science: immunology, biochemistry, physiology, etc. That's a reason why my numbers are so high.

[PhDreams]

So interesting! I was actually worried about listing 4 or 5. I decided that 3 was the highest I would list considering that there are about 20-30 profs in each department. That's about 10% of department. It sounds like you guys are using the 10% rule too. LOL Wow...100 prof departments. I didn't even know those existed.

[ion_exchanger]

Yep, I base it on the number of overall faculty in the program. At one of my prospective schools, there are about 30 faculty, and only 5 that I am interested in. I put two in my SOP, one of which I have actually met and talked to. With other small departments I listed two. If the application asked for faculty, I didn't list any in my SOP.

[biotechie]

Wow, and here I thought a department of 20-30 faculty is "big", lol. 10-15 out of 50-100 is roughly equivalent to 3-4 out of 20-30, I think. Sorry if my post came off as an attack -- I didn't mean it that way and the reasoning I used was based on the wrong assumption (in your case) that 10-15 profs would make up a majority of the department! I was just trying to convey the idea that one should only name names if they are significantly narrowing down their fields of interest!

 

No worries! I should have been more clear. I assumed that PHDreams would have large departments simply because of the caliber and size of the schools that they were applying to.

 

I guess many departments that are not science-based won't have so many faculty members. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. All of my programs have at least 50 professors with the largest having more than 150 that I could study under. In my case, there were lots of people who were doing things I was interested in. Since I know a ton of protocols, already, I was told it is more important to target professors doing research I find interesting rather than just doing techniques I want to learn.

[PhDreams]

Hahahaha I just realized that I said that the dept was quite large...and to me it was!!! About 40 professors!!! I didn't even realize that there were 150 faculty member departments out there. WOW

[bamafan]

I put around 3 on average. There's usually another place to list them, and I'd do it there. You don't want your SOP to lose focus with a lot of name dropping.

[PhDreams]

Most of my apps didn't have a space where they asked for profs you want to work with. However, I think most had spaces to identify what professors with whom youve corresponded. I mentioned 3 professors at each school and wrote a sentence about how each could help get my research to the next level.

[RubyBright]

I didn't list professors in my SOP - just made sure that each SOP was tailored to reflect specific research being done at that university, and then listed the professors where it was asked for in the application. I'm not sure what I'd recommend if they don't give you a space to do that, though.

[biotechie]

I didn't list professors in my SOP - just made sure that each SOP was tailored to reflect specific research being done at that university, and then listed the professors where it was asked for in the application. I'm not sure what I'd recommend if they don't give you a space to do that, though.

 

That's sortof what I did when I wrote my essay. Even if the school didn't have a place where I could list my professors (one did not), I was still able to demonstrate that professors there shared my interests by going into detail on the interests we shared... which match those of more than one professor.

[amlobo]

I'm in the middle of rewriting my SOP ...again. >.<

 

And there is one school where I feel like I have multiple fits and would be thrilled to work with many people in that department. In fact, the department is quite large and there are about 6 people that I could easily see myself working with. However, I was thinking of mentioning about 4 and then saying something like I think the whole department is great so as not to shut out possibilities to work with other people. Thoughts? Is that still too many? In my other SOP's I've only mentioned two max.

 

I had a few schools where there were quite a few faculty in my area, especially for larger or more focused departments.  I usually used a rule of thumb of not mentioning more than 3, even if there were more than that.  I basically did a "general fit" paragraph for the program, then mentioned a few profressors.  I always liked to start it out with "The quality of the faculty at X is impressive, and I believe that a number of professors could contribute to my studies, blah blah blah" to where it was me saying there are more than these, but here are some specific ones.