For CS PhD applicants, have you contacted any professor?

[hungryturtle]

Hi all, 

 

I haven't contacted any professor until very recently I decided to email one that I really want to work with. 

I have thought that contacting professor wouldn't really affect your admission except for rare cases where you can really impress the professor some ways, but I'm not sure anymore about that since I even see the cases that people who didn't get their admissions in the first round finally receive admission after they contact their POI and things work out well.  

 

I first assumed that as I mention my POI names in my SOP, my POIs would get a chance to read my SOP and consider me as a prospect student. However, I realized that if my POI's not in the committee and no one asks for his opinion for my application, maybe my file just slips away without giving a shot of impressing my POI. In that sense, do you think sending emails to my POI just to introduce myself at this stage would help? It wouldn't hurt, would it? I'm starting to think that the worst that can happen is for them to ignore my emails. What do you think?

[cstheory13]

Faculties from top institutes in us generally do not prefer u to mail them unless u hv some strong reasons.

[dat_nerd]

I did contact professors, but mostly to make sure they were accepting students. After I emailed them, a few professors wrote back clarifying their current research projects or suggesting other potential advisors with research interests closer to mine. I don't think it helped my application at all, but rather helped me ensure that the university would be a good fit.

 

Regarding admissions, I don't think that emailing professors now will impact your chances of being admitted unless you're able to strike up a conversation about your shared research interests. I don't think it hurts to try, but realize that emailing professors won't hold much weight, if any, at this point in the application season.

 

Just curious -- where did you apply?

[hungryturtle]

@dat_nerd

 

I applied for MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cornell, UW, UIUC, UMass, Purdue, USC, UCLA. Wow, I see that you've been already accepted to three of your list. I envy you so much since I haven't heard anything from my schools yet, lol

 

BTW, I guess you're probably the one who posted admission from UMass. May I ask if it was an official email or unofficial one from POI? 

Edited January 26, 2013 by jencsgirl

[dat_nerd]

@jencsgirl

 

Great choices. What's your research focus?

 

The UMass email was official, but it looks like they've only just started sending decision letters. Hang in there! I'm excited to see where you're accepted, so keep us posted! 

[hungryturtle]

@dat_nerd

 

Thanks for the information. My research focus lies in the fields of information retrieval and web data mining. What about you? 

[OhMySocks]

So you're the UMass person.... *glares*

 

Just kidding. Congrats. And congrats on your other admits. U of I and Austin are both fantastic schools (If you can tolerate living in the middle of a cornfield for U of I)