Potential Adviser On Sabbatical During Application Season

[Gradstudent101]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm currently looking into researchers I would be interested in working with, and have come across a few cases in which these researchers are on sabbatical at another school for this year. If this is the case, I'm assuming that they would not be reading applications this year, and that they would thus not be able to accept any new students. Is this the case? Has another has an experience with this before? I've read a lot about professors who go on sabbatical AFTER you are admitted, but could not locate information about what to do when they are on sabbatical during the admissions cycle.

 

Thanks!

[TakeruK]

Being on sabbatical doesn't mean that you are 100% cut off from any contact with your current school. While it's true that these profs will be very unlikely to serve on admissions committees, that does not mean they will not be accepting students for the following year. If you are interested in working with these profs, you can still go ahead and email them and they will respond if they are interested. Also, in many US schools, students are admitted to the program directly, not to a specific prof or research lab, so you might not even need to worry getting a lab set up before you arrive. In some programs, this happens sometime during the first year but in others, it might not happen until the second year. This is program/school dependent though.

 

In short, it would be silly if going on sabbatical meant that you don't accept students for the next 1-2 years. In my field, many profs that go on sabbatical will actually keep in regular contact with their current students and if they are visiting another school, would probably fly back to their actual school once in a while. So, if you are interested in working with these profs, even if you don't need to "sign up" with a prof before being accepted, it is worth the time to send them an email to ask about their interests once they return and whether or not they will accept students from your application year. They might take a bit longer to respond though!

[Gradstudent101]

Being on sabbatical doesn't mean that you are 100% cut off from any contact with your current school. While it's true that these profs will be very unlikely to serve on admissions committees, that does not mean they will not be accepting students for the following year. If you are interested in working with these profs, you can still go ahead and email them and they will respond if they are interested. Also, in many US schools, students are admitted to the program directly, not to a specific prof or research lab, so you might not even need to worry getting a lab set up before you arrive. In some programs, this happens sometime during the first year but in others, it might not happen until the second year. This is program/school dependent though.

 

In short, it would be silly if going on sabbatical meant that you don't accept students for the next 1-2 years. In my field, many profs that go on sabbatical will actually keep in regular contact with their current students and if they are visiting another school, would probably fly back to their actual school once in a while. So, if you are interested in working with these profs, even if you don't need to "sign up" with a prof before being accepted, it is worth the time to send them an email to ask about their interests once they return and whether or not they will accept students from your application year. They might take a bit longer to respond though!

 

Great advice! Thanks a lot!

[TakeruK]

Glad it was helpful! I forgot to mention that at one of the schools I visited, one of the profs that was on sabbatical timed one of their visits home to overlap with the prospective grad student weekend so that they could meet potential new students. So, in that case, there was really no difference in the amount of contact I had with this prof and other profs at the same school who weren't on sabbatical.

[rising_star]

My experience was similar to TakeruK's. I applied to work with someone that was on sabbatical and it was fine. He was still able to review my application and even called one of my recommenders to tell him to give me a heads-up that I was going to be accepted. He wasn't available when I visited but that's because he was actually out of state for his sabbatical. Still, it was fine.