As a graduate student I receive spam from addresses with Indian names a few times each month. I know from speaking to my advisor that the level of spam he recei

As a graduate student I receive spam from addresses with Indian names a few times each month. I know from speaking to my advisor that the level of spam he receives is much greater, and often contains names that sound foreign to him. Even worse, these emails are somewhat generic in ways that resemble the form letter in this study. Normally, when a prospective grad student is interested in working with you, at least in the field I'm in (psychology), they mention something about your interests when contacting, rather then a generic form-looking email. I'm not saying that this makes not responding to emails from minority students okay. I wonder to what degree professors might see something that is not personalized, from a name which is "similar" to other names they associate with spam, and decide not to respond. Andy Gelman has a good example of the kind of spam that comes in: http://andrewgelman.com/2014/04/05/bizarre-academic-spam/ http://andrewgelman.com/2014/04/05/bizarre-academic-spam/