Right way to contact Professor’s during admission process

Contacting the Professors at the right time will definitely help you get that one dream I-20 you were waiting for. This post is the continuation of the previous article Guaranteed Admission to Graduate School: One magical idea. There is no magic behind this. But, there are certain ways that you can effectively get their attention. Making Professors respond to you is the key behind getting admission. I will explain the following aspects of sending an email so that your email doesn’t go to Trash right away.1) When to send email?

2) Length of the email

3) Contents of the mail ( What to include and exclude )

4) What to do if there is no reply

Example 1:

Dear Dr.XYZ,

My name is Atul and I have applied for Spring Semester for Masters in Computer Science. I’m very much interested to study in your University. I have very good academic percentage in my Undergraduate Course and good GRE, TOEFL scores. Will I get RA or TA with admission? If so, that will be of great help. I have presented various papers in National Level Conference and My Final year project was about Operating Systems. I was part of team of 4 people to implement the project and we won the best project for out year.

Thanks,
Atul.

So, what do you think of Example 1. It says about the student achievement and interest to study in a school. But, do you think that kind of email will appeal to the Professor. I’m sure it goes straight to Deleted Items.

Tip 1: Email should not be more than 4 lines

Tip 2: Do Research and present facts

Tip 3: Create an association between your interest/experience and Professors/Universities research interests.

Tip 4: Don’t attach your resume in the first email

Tip 5: Use Bold while mentioning your projects.

Tip 6: Don’t send emails on Weekends. Try to send email on weekdays during working hours.

Why the above tips will work?

Professors are extremely busy and they follow strict schedule. They don’t have time to read lengthy emails, that doesn’t have its appeal. They receive 100’s of emails everyday. Remember, your email will be one among the many he receives from his current students and many more.

During the admission decision process, only few Professors or Graduate Advisor’s will be involved in the process. If you happen to contact them and get their attention, you have much better chance of getting admission.

If any of your projects and research work of a Professors matches, or if you worked in any area that a Professor is working on, you can very well contact him. Follow the same 6 tips I said and get his attention.

Usually, if they are interested, they will ask for your resume. Once, they like your profile, he/she will recommend you for admission. If it happens to be one of best funded projects, you might get RA/TA with admission.

Example 2:

Dear Dr.Sharma,

I have applied for Masters in Computer Science for Spring 2008. I read your current research on Distributed Operating System. I have worked on implementing Kernel less OS and presented papers in National Level Conference. I like to know more about the research work and I’m interested in working for your project. My application # is 123456

Thank You,
First name Last Name.

I’m sure an email similar to Example 2 will definitely get an reply mail form the Professors. He might ask for your resume and project description and maybe he might send you few links for white papers to you to study.

So, now you know what to do get admission to graduate school. Instead of applying and waiting for 2-3 months without knowing the results. It doesn’t cost anything to be little proactive and get the admission in the college you always dreamed.

I would really appreciate if you like the post, or if you had any similar experience to write a comment.