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When I was admitted to graduate school, I read up on each target professor's research, asked them relevant questions, met some at academic conferences, and made
by gyardley 16y ago
When I was admitted to graduate school, I read up on each target professor's research, asked them relevant questions, met some at academic conferences, and made sure each knew I was applying to that graduate program to work directly with them before I sent my application in.
I also made sure I wasn't wasting my time applying to work with professors who were going on sabbatical or not accepting new graduate students.
Of course, this was for a history Ph.D., but I suspect the same advice holds elsewhere.
- fooandbarify 16y agoThanks, that's helpful. Did you limit your targets to professors working where you did your undergrad or did you try to cast a wider net? If so, did it work?
- gyardley 16y agoNo, I targeted professors at the absolute best schools possible, because I was considering a career in academia at the time and you can't get a tenure-track job with a second-tier Ph.D. I got accepted at every school I applied to, but my application itself was pretty strong, so it's hard to say if the outreach 'worked' vs. another aspect of the application.