6/16/2018 How to Correspond with Potential Graduate School Advisers | Clastic Detritus

A blog about sedimentary geoscience.

How to Correspond with Potential Graduate

School Advisers

AUGUST 21, 2015

UPDATE: Make sure to also read the comments at the bo om of this post for some additional and
different perspectives.

Disclaimer About This Post: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to reaching out to potential grad school advisers.
If there was one magical method that always worked, you would know about it by now. Each student, adviser,
department, discipline, and overall situation is unique. My advice below is based on my perspective, experiences,
and biases. I’m just one person. Also, please realize my advice is specific to geoscience and may not be valid or
relevant for other scientific disciplines. I encourage students to seek advice from a diverse pool of mentors and peers.
Finally, this advice is not comprehensive, one could write a book about this.

It’s that time of year where undergraduates at my institution want my advice about how to apply to
graduate school. I figured it might be useful to write this post and share it more broadly.

(1) Start Early

Sometimes I get an email from an undergrad in our department around mid-December saying “Hey, do
you have any advice for applying to grad school? Thanks!” If you haven’t even started the process and
it’s December, it’s too late. (Not to mention that you’ve given me very li le time to respond, and it’s final
exam time, good luck with that!) Okay, maybe the application deadline is still a few weeks away, so it’s
technically not too late. Sure, it’s possible that things will still work out for you, but you’re not
maximizing your chances by waiting this long.

Start researching potential advisers/departments (more on that below) in August at the very latest,
which would be approximately a full year before you would start. Yeah, that’s right, at least a full year
before. You’re not deciding which toppings to get on your pizza, this is your life. Not only does starting
this early allow sufficient time to learn as much as you can about the adviser/department, but it takes
time for correspondence to happen. Additionally, you might learn that a potential adviser will be
a ending a conference in the fall where you could meet them in person. If you start too late, you could
miss that opportunity.

(2) Do the Research

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This is going to take some time and effort, at least to do it right. First, there’s the easy stuff. What’s the
application deadline and process? What are the departmental requirements in terms of grades, scores,
etc.? Most departments have this information on their websites — don’t email a potential adviser with a
laundry list of basic questions that can be found on a website with a li le bit of effort. Find it yourself,
you’re an adult, get it together. In fact, if I get an email from a prospective student asking about this stuff
(and nothing else), I may reply with the link they could have found in less than a minute and then
proceed to grumble aloud. Not looking good for that student.

Create a spreadsheet or document, a database essentially, of information about each adviser/department.

Create different columns or categories as you go so you can stay organized. Put website links into the
document so you can easily access them later. As you compile more information, this database will help
you make decisions (e.g., ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ categories).

In terms of researching what kind of science potential advisers do, this can be less straightforward. Some
professors have updated and easy-to-navigate websites highlighting their research group (I think mine
(h p://www.vtsedsystems.org/) is pre y good). Other professors, even very prominent and successful
scientists, do not have a website. Or, if they do, it was last updated in 2006 or something like that. If
you’ve heard of someone or found someone on a departmental site and it looks interesting to you, try
searching their name in GoogleScholar (h ps://scholar.google.com/) and ResearchGate
(h ps://www.researchgate.net/) to find more. This is where the ‘research’ part comes in to this process
— the amount of time and effort you spend learning about potential advisers will vary significantly.

Okay, so what kind of things are you looking for?

What is their overarching scientific interest? What types of questions and problems are they
interested in? If they have a website, they might have a high-level statement that encompasses all
their work.
Take a look at their publication list. This is one of the best ways to see what they actually work on.
Don’t fret if you aren’t familiar with all the details and nuances of a particular paper. You want to get
an overall sense of the type of science they do. Note the journals they publish in — the titles of the
journals will also be a window into the type of work they do (e.g., field, laboratory, modeling/theory,
integrated).
What are their current projects? This is important because these specific projects could be the ones
for which they have funding (and, thus, $$$ for a new grad student). This isn’t always the case, they
may have new projects coming online that aren’t listed yet (e.g., funding still pending).
Look at the ‘People’ page of their website (if they have one). How many grad students do they
currently have? What types of projects are they working on? Is it mostly master’s, PhD, or a mix?

I’m sure there’s much more, but hopefully you get the idea. Again, try to capture this information into
your database. Have a ‘comments’ category to write down your impressions. Once you start looking at
multiple options it’s nice to be able to refer to one document to remind you of some details.

(3) You’re Applying to Work with a Person, not Just an Institution

Going to grad school is not like going to college. Not at all. When you apply to undergrad you apply to
an institution primarily. When you apply to grad school you are applying to a department, but you are
also applying to work with a particular person. Yes, there are situations where students apply to a
department and then, after acceptance, find an adviser in that department to work with. It’s not to say it
doesn’t happen, but it’s rare.

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The adviser-grad student relationship is somewhat like an apprenticeship. You will be learning the trade
of doing science from a mentor. You want to learn about what working with this person is like. You are
not going to learn everything from a person’s website, I realize that. But, it’s worth pu ing the time and
effort in. I’d add that this is especially important for Ph.D. students since you’ll be working with this
person for 4-6 years.

(4) Writing E-mails to and Corresponding with Potential Advisers

Okay, you’ve done some research and have a list of professors whose research programs look interesting
to you. Now, it’s time to reach out to them. How does this work? This is where things get tricky because
everyone is different. So, I want to reiterate that this is based on my own perspective. (Perhaps any
faculty reading this could add their two cents in the comments.)

Firstly, take this seriously. Don’t send off an email you composed on your phone over lunch. Treat this
as a cover le er. Create a Word document(or whatever software you use) so you can save and modify
the text. Potential advisers will be consciously or subconsciously evaluating your writing in this email.
This is what we do! Why would I take on a new grad student who doesn’t even put the effort in to
writing a proper email? If you think that’s absurd and unfair, then good luck to you in all your
endeavors.

Is there a form-le er you can use where you just change the names? Of course not! If that worked, you
would know about it by now. This is going to take some effort. (You’re probably sensing a theme here.)
Not only do you need to put thought into this le er, it’s likely it will be different for each situation. That
is, you will end up with as many Word documents for as many advisers/departments you plan to
contact.

Here’s what I like to see when I get these emails:

Not too short, not too long. Two paragraphs max. A very long le er, regardless of how well its
wri en, will probably not be read in full. That’s just the way it is.
State your name, what degree and institution you have or will have, and the date or expected date of
said degree. Do that all in one sentence.
State what you want. For example, “I want to pursue a master’s degree in geoscience and your
research program looks like a great fit for me and my interests.” As an adviser, I like to know if a
student wants a master’s or Ph.D. from the start. You might think being flexible is be er, but we are
constantly planning and looking ahead about the make-up of our group.
State your long-term goals. Do you want a master’s degree and then pursue a career in industry? Do
you want a Ph.D. and pursue a career in academics? I appreciate that you may not yet know what
you want to do. In that case, put some thought into writing a sentence or two that communicates
that.
All the above would be in the first paragraph. Close that paragraph with a direct question to the
person. For example, “Will you be accepting new graduate students to start in Fall 20XX?” A direct
question prompts the person to do something, to act. In this case, to reply to your email. You might
even put it in bold.
The second paragraph can summarize and highlight things you’ve done/are doing. I especially like to
hear about any undergrad research projects you’ve participated in or are currently participating in.
Don’t get too hung up on if the project you did doesn’t match exactly with what the person does.
From my point of view, doing any research as an undergrad is valuable because you (hopefully) see
the process of doing science.

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But, don’t go overboard on this second paragraph. Keep it succinct. You can refer them to the
resume/CV you will a ach to the email at this point. (Bonus tip: Include your last name in the file
name of your resume/CV. There’s not much more annoying than a folder on my hard drive with 15
resumes called “resume.pdf”. Oh yeah, and convert it to a PDF, don’t send a .doc/.docx file.)

Okay, you’ve sent off this important email that you’ve put a lot of thought and work into. Now what?
What if you don’t get a reply immediately? Well, in all likelihood you won’t get an immediate reply.
Professors are busy people. Some are be er than others with this sort of thing. Don’t take it personal. If
you don’t get a reply after 2-3 weeks, then I think it’s appropriate to send a follow-up email simply
saying you’re emailing again (and then include the original text in there so they don’t have to go
searching). This is another reason why it’s important to start the process early. It may take up to a month
to get a response.

When they do reply, hopefully you get some solid information. They might say “Sorry, I’m not taking on
any new grad students right now.” This is a bummer, but obviously important to know. Or, they might
say “I might be taking on grad students, but I’m not sure just yet, please contact me again in X weeks.”
Sometimes we are waiting to hear about grants or other sources of funding and aren’t ready to make a
decision. Or, they might say something like “I will be looking to accept a new graduate student, I
encourage you to apply.” This is very good. It’s exceedingly rare that you’ll get “OMG, yes, please apply
and I will definitely accept you into my program!”.

The types of replies you might get are too variable to even categorize here. It really just depends on their
situation and how they do things. Expect different things from different people. If you get a reply back
encouraging you to apply, then reply back saying that you’re aware of the application deadline and
process (basically, that you’re ‘on it’). If you get a reply saying they aren’t taking new students, it’s
good to send a quick message back thanking them for the information.

(5) Get It Together

Finally, this is the most important message (and is advice that goes way beyond applying to grad
school): Get your stuff together. (You can substitute another word for ‘stuff’ if you like.) Get organized.
Stay on top of things. Get your ducks in a row. Etc. Seriously, there’s nothing more frustrating than a
talented and creative student that doesn’t have it together. I don’t care how good your grades are, how
high your IQ is, where you went to undergrad, etc. … if you aren’t ready to jump on an opportunity
when it comes your way, you could miss it. It’s competitive out there. Get it together.

—-

Okay, I’ve already wri en a lot in this post. I’m sure there are a thousand other things to talk about from
both the student and adviser perspective. Again, this is not meant to be comprehensive. Feel free to
cha er away in the comments.

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9 Comments leave one →
1. Rowan Martindale PERMALINK
August 27, 2015 8:03 am
As a female professor with a non-traditional name: If you misgender me, I am going to know you
haven’t done your research. I have a website, with lots of photos, it should not be difficult!

REPLY
Brian Romans PERMALINK*
August 27, 2015 8:40 am
Yes, good point … those that send out generic form emails and make assumptions do so at their
peril!

2. Mark PERMALINK
August 27, 2015 9:31 am
I would add, don’t ask outright if I have a Teaching or Research Assistantship – the answer is always
the same a year before you come – I don’t know. I get emails nearly every other day just asking if I
have money for grad students, and they get deleted.That isn’t how it works. When emailing, you
should be doing nothing more than finding an adviser who is a good fit and who is ‘looking’ for new
students, and go from there. Have a few faculty at a few institutions think you are a good fit and let
them know you have are considering other faculty as well (we likely know them, and have no hurt

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feelings you are talking to our friends at other places). Apply to all of the schools, and then wait for
an Assistantship offer to show up. If you absolutely need an assistantship to a end, make that clear
in the cover le er of the application.

From my perspective, I like to have a few good students that I know want to come for graduate
school, and have them accepted, so that when I get that grant notice (in the summer, most likely), I
have a short list I can quickly email to offer assistantships, so that I can then ‘rope in’ a student.

REPLY
Brian Romans PERMALINK*
August 28, 2015 8:43 am
Mark … thanks for adding your thoughts/perspective, which has some important differences to
my advice. I’ve updated the post at the top to direct readers to the comments.

3. Rick Behl PERMALINK

August 27, 2015 10:44 am
Thank you, Brian. Excellent advice! I would add that I like to see in the first le er that the student
actually knows what I do and can express what they are interested in studying with me. And for
further advice regarding #3 – if the student gets to the point that a prospective adviser indicates to
them that they are good candidates and in the running for a acceptance, they should find out more
about that professor as a person by contacting their current or former students and by meeting them
on campus or at a meeting.

REPLY
Brian Romans PERMALINK*
August 28, 2015 8:44 am
Rick … great, glad this is useful and thanks for adding your thoughts.

4. Telly Manos PERMALINK

August 28, 2015 8:00 am
Thanks Brian! Very well wri en and easy to follow guide. I’ll be sure to keep this bookmarked over
the next few months as I contact professors!

REPLY

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