Is having only one POI per school common?

[rufio]

From most posts here and at sdn, it seems to me that a lot of people only apply for one POI at their schools of choice... I'm curious if that was the case for all your programs or if you put down mulitlple POIs.

I personally only applied to schools where I had at least two POIs.

 

So what'd you do?

 

Also, what are the advantages/disadvantages to applying to one vs. multiple POIs per school?

Edited January 13, 2013 by rufio

[mewtoo]

My research interest is not terribly popular, so I had trouble finding POIs period. All of mine had only 1 POI save for 2 schools at which I had 2 POIs at each.

[EastCoasting]

I would say that about half the schools I applied to I only listed/mentioned one POI. It's not that there wasn't anyone else whose work I was interested in, it's just that I wasn't interested in it enough to want to attend the program if they were not interested in me.

[rufio]

My research interest is not terribly popular, so I had trouble finding POIs period. All of mine had only 1 POI save for 2 schools at which I had 2 POIs at each.

 

I can definitely understand that. When I was first applying, I made a spreadsheet and ranked POIs based on how much I would want to work with them. From there I only applied to schools that included at least one with the highest ranking. It turned out that none of the single person schools ranked high enough to warrant my application.

[RubyBright]

I had two to three POIs at each school. I'm interested in several topics in my field, and I really would be happy enough dealing with any of them for the next 5+ years.

[+Whiskey]

I mentioned at least two per school in statements, but I always picked a favorite. There was always one person I really, really wanted to work with and one or two more whose interests aligned with mine well enough that I would be happy working and collaborating with them and that made me think that the department as a whole would be a good fit. I think I wrote a paragraph on my favorite POI and a paragraph on the one or two others who were reasonably good fits for each school, making the preference pretty obvious.  

[PsychGirl1]

I only had one at each school. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing!

[RubyBright]

I mentioned at least two per school in statements, but I always picked a favorite. There was always one person I really, really wanted to work with and one or two more whose interests aligned with mine well enough that I would be happy working and collaborating with them and that made me think that the department as a whole would be a good fit. I think I wrote a paragraph on my favorite POI and a paragraph on the one or two others who were reasonably good fits for each school, making the preference pretty obvious.  

 

I didn't include mine in my SOP... I just referenced specific types of work they're doing. I hope that's all right! I didn't want to preclude myself from being considered to work with other people.

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

My research interest is not terribly popular, so I had trouble finding POIs period. All of mine had only 1 POI save for 2 schools at which I had 2 POIs at each.

I had the same problem. For some programs, I had to combine POIs in order for my interests to match up. For others, the fit was a smidge of a stretch. (Unsurprisingly, those stretch fits were my implicit rejections).

[lypiphera]

I have a few broadly-connected research interests, so I was able to find schools that had more than one professor I was interested in.  In deciding what schools to apply to, I ruled out ones that only had 1 professor I was interested in, because a) I had less chance of getting in, there wouldn't be other people I would be interested in collaborating with, and c) if for some reason my advisor and I weren't a good fit in grad school, I would have no one to switch to.  Obviously if your research interested is more focused and you don't have as many people working on it, you would have to just apply to places with 1 POI.

[lypiphera]

I have a few broadly-connected research interests, so I was able to find schools that had more than one professor I was interested in.  In deciding what schools to apply to, I ruled out ones that only had 1 professor I was interested in, because a) I had less chance of getting in, there wouldn't be other people I would be interested in collaborating with, and c) if for some reason my advisor and I weren't a good fit in grad school, I would have no one to switch to.  Obviously if your research interested is more focused and you don't have as many people working on it, you would have to just apply to places with 1 POI.

 

Apparently you can't type "b" + ")" because it turns it into a smiley face..... 

[Nausicaa]

I mentioned 3 in each of them, but I put an entire paragraph for my favorite. Also, for 2/4 it was fairly obvious from my research interests and study proposals whom I'd want to work with.

 

Also, now that it's on my mind, did anyone else put references in their SoP? By which I mean when I was talking about some of the research avenues I want to pursue, and I defended my ideas by citing a few authors briefly. I didn't have a full reference list, but I put parenthetical citations. Did anyone else do that or was I just being super weird?

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

I used citations without the full reference. I cited the longitudinal study I've been working with and papers the pois had written. 

[rufio]

I have a few broadly-connected research interests, so I was able to find schools that had more than one professor I was interested in.  In deciding what schools to apply to, I ruled out ones that only had 1 professor I was interested in, because a) I had less chance of getting in, there wouldn't be other people I would be interested in collaborating with, and c) if for some reason my advisor and I weren't a good fit in grad school, I would have no one to switch to.  Obviously if your research interested is more focused and you don't have as many people working on it, you would have to just apply to places with 1 POI.

 

That's exactly what I did as well! Which is part of why I only applied to 4 schools.

[Tolman's Rat]

I mentioned at least two per school in statements, but I always picked a favorite. There was always one person I really, really wanted to work with and one or two more whose interests aligned with mine well enough that I would be happy working and collaborating with them and that made me think that the department as a whole would be a good fit. I think I wrote a paragraph on my favorite POI and a paragraph on the one or two others who were reasonably good fits for each school, making the preference pretty obvious.  

This was my approach as well. After looking at some of the SOP guidelines for my programs, they asked to discuss some faculty members who "might be able to help with your research". I talked about one at length who I thought was a great fit, and then a few others who were interested in similar topics but might offer a slightly different perspective. For example, I applied to programs where intra-departmental collaboration is very common, and I talked about how other researchers could help me build an understanding of a topic from the perspective of statistical modelling (e.g., Bayesian networking) or from a developmental perspective. 

[Lisa44201]

For most of mine, I had one POI at a school. I too have a fairly narrow research focus, and there aren't a whole lot of people in my specific sub-specialty. I applied to work with the people I cite seemingly every time I write a paper, as that's a pretty good clue for me that I'm interested in their line of research. These people just happen to be spread across several institutions.

[Angua]

My research is cross-disciplinary in a way that is fairly uncommon, but a big part of my reasoning for attending grad school is to broaden and build up the psych side of my work.  So there are a very small number of people doing *exactly* what I am most interested in, and a lot of people doing things closely related to my interests. 

 

All of which is to say, I had more than one POI almost everywhere I applied.  In the rare case that one of them was exactly on point, I emphasized those people more.  If there weren't 2 or 3 people at least that I thought I could really do good work for/with, I didn't apply, except where the one person was really on point. Like lypiphera, I worry that if I'm really only interested in the work of one professor, it puts me in a precarious position and could be really limiting.  I'm much more excited about the schools where I could see myself with several people, because I want to work with (or, at a minimum, be able to get meaningful input from) more than one person.