Master's applicant - should I list multiple areas of interest, and should I contact profs?

[chron]

I am applying for a Master's not a PhD, though I want to go for a thesis rather than coursework option, and the area is computer science. I'm afraid I have come across as a newbie and made KODs on the applications already. First, the statement of purpose - the first half of it basically went like this:

 

"I am interested in (Area X). I would be interested in researching (blah blah) or I'm interested in this area because of this reason. ..... I believe professors A, B, and C could be potential supervisors."

 

and then I repeated this 2 or 3 times.

 

Did I commit a KOD? It's hard for me to say I want to go for a specific area though I think I have a general direction, but did I make myself look all over the place by doing this? And the professors are just names I listed who do research in the area - I've never contacted with them. I know this is a boring SOP but as someone who's admittedly not a candidate with a lot of accomplishments it's hard for me to write one.

 

Also should I have been contacting profs? I've heard conflicting opinions on this which confuses me. I've heard some say that I should be emailing profs, but others say that I'd look like I'm buttering up to them and would make things worse. I've seen grad schools' sites say emailing profs would just annoy them and make me blacklisted, but now I see a grad school that says I should be contacting profs AFTER my application if I want to be admitted. I'm confused. Even if I were to email a prof, what would I say to them? Simply that I'd be interested to do research with them? What if I don't have a specific area of interest right now? Was that only supposed to apply to PhD applicants, or Master's too? Someone told me that I should have contacted profs before I applied, and only apply to a few schools which show particular interest in me, and that I am wasting money applying to more schools. But I've also heard that I'm not supposed to try to gauge my chances of admission by contacting people at the grad school.

 

 

 

[nohika]

I phrased my SoP more like "I believe Professor (X)'s interests in x as demonstrated by paper(s) a, b, c match my interests because of y." To show that you've done research on the professors, you know what their recent papers were on, etc.

 

I don't know if that's standard though, but I've got an acceptance and my SoP readers (mostly professors) liked it.

[chron]

nohika, did you write this for one prof or did you name multiple profs (and if so how many)?

[blakeblake]

It is better to list just one specific area of interest (and often, one professor who might help you study it) and talk it up for an entire pragraph.  You can always change your mind--saying that you want to study area X does not mean that you are required to do so, but it shows that you have direction to focus on one area of interest.

 

If naming multiple areas/ professors was such problem that you do not get into any programs this year, then live, learn, and write your letter differently during the next year's application cycle.

[chron]

blake, your advice makes sense to me. However what confuses me is, I called one of my grad schools yesterday (the one that said I should contact profs after applying) and they said Master's applicants often list multiple areas of interest on their application. They also didn't seem to suggest a limit to the # of profs I should contact (though that's not the same as # of profs to list in my statement).

 

I'll avoid listing several profs' names next time, but do I still have to keep to one area of interest - I linked them together with a common theme in my statement, though I'm not sure my readers will buy that argument. You may indeed be right, but you can understand why I'm unsettled on this due to the conflicting information I've heard.

[blakeblake]

It may depend somewhat on your field, chron, but the following advice should be good for most fields:

It can be appropriate to list two areas of interest on an *application* (say, 18th Century Literature and Russian Literature), but in a *letter of intent,* stick to just one prospective topic of research (perhaps in Russian lit, perhaps in 18th, perhaps on 18th Century Russian lit).  Also, in your letter, you should probably only list one professor who can provide special insight into your research topic, but feel free to contact all the professors that you can--who knows, maybe one of them will be a better letter of intent prof than the person that you were thinking of in the first place.