How research informed were you before writing SOP?

[bsharpe269]

Sorry guys... lots of application questions lately as I am starting to seriously get ready for applications.

 

For those you had luck getting into phd programs, how well did you know potential advisor's research before writing SOPs? All of the departments that I am applying to are amazingly perfect research fits and I have identified potential PIs. There are many at each university doing interesting reserach so I am working through publications and taking some notes as I read them so that when it comes time to write my SOPs, I can refer to the notes on the potential PIs.

 

Would you say that reading through 3ish publications (diverse ones that let you see a variety of their current reserach) for each potential PI is enough? How well did you know the research? I of course have a few dream PIs whose research I stalk and could rave about for hours but most of them are interesting and doing similar work. I guess I am just trying to get a sense for the norm here... did you just read research descriptions, or 1-2 papers, or many papers, or did you have lengthy conversations with them or what? I guess writing time is coming up soon... but I dont feel ready for it yet!

 

Thanks for any wisdom!

[GeoDUDE!]

Sorry guys... lots of application questions lately as I am starting to seriously get ready for applications.

 

For those you had luck getting into phd programs, how well did you know potential advisor's research before writing SOPs? All of the departments that I am applying to are amazingly perfect research fits and I have identified potential PIs. There are many at each university doing interesting reserach so I am working through publications and taking some notes as I read them so that when it comes time to write my SOPs, I can refer to the notes on the potential PIs.

 

Would you say that reading through 3ish publications (diverse ones that let you see a variety of their current reserach) for each potential PI is enough? How well did you know the research? I of course have a few dream PIs whose research I stalk and could rave about for hours but most of them are interesting and doing similar work. I guess I am just trying to get a sense for the norm here... did you just read research descriptions, or 1-2 papers, or many papers, or did you have lengthy conversations with them or what? I guess writing time is coming up soon... but I dont feel ready for it yet!

 

Thanks for any wisdom!

 

I would say all work within the last 3-4 years or so is a good start: you don't have to read all of them but their significant work would be important. The work they did 10 years ago isn't as likely to be important as the stuff they did in 2010-2014 in terms of the type of research you will be doing and discussing with them.  

 

You won't be expected to make some super insightful comment about their work (but if you do, that might be enough to get you into graduate school) but show just enough that you have done some background work and it isn't some random flyer. 

 

PhDs tend to be broken up into multiple "smaller" projects connected by a central conceit, where the first project has heavy involvement from the advisor and less and less as you move on to different smaller projects. They realize this. It might also be just as important to know your POI's research as other people who do similar stuff. This is important because they might ask you where else you are applying, and when you answer, you want to answer like someone who is informed on the field they want to study.  

 

 

My conversations with POIs varied from a few hours to 20 minutes. I got into and rejected from places where i've had both longer and shorter conversations. There is no standard unless there is some sort of interviewing process in the graduate department. 

Edited June 26, 2014 by GeoDUDE!

[victorydance]

I think for me, I already know the work of most of my POIs just from my research projects beforehand. My honours thesis had 160+ citations on my potential research topic so I have already read a lot of their work beforehand. It wasn't a process of finding POIs then reading their work, it was more a process of already knowing who is in my field/sub-field and identifying departments that had other people that connect to that. 

 

I have a folder of all my POIs and a handful of their publications that fit with my research interests. Most of these were just imputed from my endnote library but some of them were done by scratch. I think there is only 2 or 3 (out of around 14 schools or so) that I had never read their work beforehand.

[TakeruK]

I applied to 8 schools, each with at least 3 people. That's 24 professors and I didn't have time to read 3-5 papers * 24 = hundreds of papers for applications.

 

Like others above, there are some professors who are well known enough that I did already know their research pretty well without having to read everything they wrote in the last 3-4 years. Or, I came across their work in past conferences, from my honours thesis or from my Masters thesis.

 

I would say that it's helpful to at least read the abstracts of the articles they were involved in. Maybe read one paper that they first authored. I also found it helpful to look at articles in which they are a coauthor and see who the first author is. Is it their graduate student, or is it always themselves or their postdocs? For me, I wanted to make sure I was joining a group where grad students are trusted and trained to take the lead on projects and write it up. In addition, it's important to see what kind of papers have grad student first authors and which papers do not. 

 

For me, the most useful information I got about my POIs was from my MSc and BSc supervisors. I went through almost every name/school with them and we talked about what we knew about each person--what they work on, what they are like to work with, how they are regarded in the field, whether or not they were on their way up or declining etc. 

 

You don't need to know every POI's interests and history super well at the time of applications, in my opinion. You just need to know enough to 1) show that there is a fit and 2) prove to yourself that it's worth the $100 or so to apply to that school. I spent my time reading up on each professor when it was time for interviews (if you have them) or when it's time for you to make a decision. 

[victorydance]

^ That's good advice about talking to your profs about profs in your field. One of my LORs advised me that you should look for that "sweet spot" for POIs which is basically right about tenure time to 10-15 years after tenure. If you are targeting older profs that don't do much research/don't chair anymore, or freshly hired then that's a bit of a bad recipe. Profs are most productive in the 35-45 range, and hitting the people that are in that sweet spot and are publishing substantial work is really desirable.

 

I talked to my profs about quite a few POIs, especially the ones that are at their ph.d. granting institutions. It can be quite valuable information.

[bsharpe269]

Thanks for the responses! There are certainly 1-2 famous professors at each school who I do already know the research well enough that I do not need to read anything before discussing it in my SOP but there are also plenty of people whose work is different enough that I havent come across it during my own research but still similar enough that I would be interested in it. There are at least a few people like this at each school. These are the people who I am trying to learn about currently.

 

My current PI has also been full of advice! He went through my list of names and told me about the personalities of the people he had met at conferences and who the more well known professors at each school are. Since there are so many people who are doing research in my subfield at the departments I am aplying to, maybe I should just focuss on talking about a couple people in detail in the SOP and then make a note like "I am also very interested in the work of (insert other few names), who are doing similar work in blah blah". It might be better to know a couple people really well at each school than to read papers by every person. I am applying to the departments saturated with people in my subfield so it really would be a ton of papers. Maybe I should just focus on my favorite couple and then expand out if I am offered an interview. These applications are complicated!

[victorydance]

I think there is three types of POIs in the application process: the ones who align with your research interests very well, people who do work in your sub-field but don't necessarily align with your specific research interests, and people who uses methods similar to the ones you are interested in employing.

 

This may depend on your discipline, but in my prospective SOPs I focus extensively on the former. These are the people where I actually specifically mention their work and tie it to mine in the SOP. The other two, I might mention, but don't go into detail about their work in the SOP. Something along the lines of "of course, Professors X, Y, and Z, offer a breadth of opportunities for blah blah blah" or "Professors X, Y, and Z provide substantive knowledge in sub-field X."

 

Obviously you don't have the space to divulge into the intricacies of every somewhat relevant professor in the department. And even if you did, I am not sure it's the best approach anyways. You want the readers to logically agree with your targets, if they don't see that logical connection of why you are really interested in POI X, it might come off as name-dropping or lack of research.

 

Ideally, you should have at least 1, preferably 2 or more, that can logically be connected to your research statement/line of inquiry. This should be the bread and butter and almost full extent of your "fit paragraph." It should be surgical and completely targeted.

 

But that's my opinion. 

[bakalamba]

I think I did more research on POIs to see if the program was worth applying to, than I did specifically for my SOP. In the end, I really only had a few sentences about the POI, and a sentence or two summarizing the additional people in the program I was excited about working with.

 

I read a few articles anyways, at least for the POIs at the top programs: faculty I was usually referred directly two by other faculty members. For the rest, I just read abstracts and looked at the titles of recent published work.

 

The hardest part of the SOP was not about faculty, but identifying research centers or projects that I'd be a good fit in. I had to talk with faculty and current grad students to see what was out there - just because something's listed on the website doesn't mean it's still active or relevant.