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Contacting faculty before applying to PhD programs?

In our March "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Last fall, a friend of mine applying to epidemiology PhD programs directly contacted faculty members he was interested in working with before applying and asked about their research, their departments, etc. The result was that my friend hit it off with one of the faculty members he contacted, and the faculty member made sure he was admitted into the program as her advisee. As I consider re-applying to PhD programs in philosophy for the third time, I wonder whether I should take a similar approach this round. My understanding is that this practice (contacting specific faculty members that one wants to work with) is fairly common in the sciences but is frowned upon in the humanities. Is that correct? I’m curious what others think.

Good question. I share the author's sense that this is common in the sciences but not in the humanities. Specifically, this seems to be because in the sciences, one is admitted to work in a particular faculty member's lab. Do people ever do it in philosophy? Is it a good or bad idea? I'm not sure.

What do readers think?

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13 responses to “Contacting faculty before applying to PhD programs?”

  1. Very outdated data

    This was a long long time ago, like in 2012, but I contacted two or three faculties across different departments. Only one replied with a generic “oh awesome I encourage you to apply.” The other two didn’t respond. I didn’t get into any of these departments. But of course, I’m not sure whether this has something to do with the practice or the quality of my application package.
    There are other places where one is required to contact someone, and even develop a research proposal. But that would probably be in the UK, AU, and NZ. I heard that my supervisor fought very hard to ensure that I got a fully funded scholarship package.

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  2. Grad program faculty

    Please don’t do this! No one wants you to do this. It creates a huge amount of work for us, and it won’t positively affect your chances.

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  3. Jacob Joseph Andrews

    When I was applying for PhD programs (2011-2014, all US), the first round I contacted departments I was interested in and, in one school, had a great conversation with both the chair of Philosophy. They were happy to meet and talk with me, although I didn’t get accepted in the end. On the other hand, the PhD program I finally got into was my undergrad alma mater.

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  4. Prof L

    It is a bad idea.
    This has been increasing in recent years and as a matter of policy, I do not respond to these emails. Almost always, the person emailing says “I’m so interested in your work! I would love to work with you!” but doesn’t really know what I work on (they shouldn’t! They are undergrads, I’m some second-rate scholar at a middling university) and is obviously trying to butter me up to see if they can get an edge in the application process. I find this indicative of a kind of false flattery and shameless ambition that I think is a problem in the profession. I do not happen to have any say in the application process, but if I did, such emails would hurt applicants.

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  5. Brad

    In Denmark and other parts of northern Europe, PhDs (all?) are tied to a particular project which is tied to a PIs grant. So you will be working with a particular individual faculty member from the start of your PhD. And there is no changing supervisors midway. In this situation it is perfectly fine to contact a professor and inquire. But if they do not have funding there is no PhD position to apply to. So here every PhD position is like the sciences. But, I assume the question is coming from someone in North America. There I think it might be a little odd to contact individual faculty members. All they can do is encourage you to apply. It provides no shortcut or “in” into the department.

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  6. anon

    I also think OP’s impression is correct. I advise my senior undergraduate students not to do this when they ask me about it.
    To give some additional context/applicability for my impression: I’ve worked at two PhD-granting institutions in Canada. In both those cases, graduate admissions are decided by a committee, and not everyone is on the committee, so the person you’re reaching out to might not even have any official decision-making power. And in any case, one faculty member being excited by one applicant’s research project is just one of the very many factors a committee might take into consideration in their evaluation of all the applicants (I haven’t heard of this actually happening.)
    Moreover, my own sense is that students might significantly shift in their interests during the early years of the PhD, and that it doesn’t make sense to make a strong commitment to one person supervising your PhD before you’ve even started the program. So it’s more about looking for strong students rather than a student who really, really wants to writer a dissertation with Dr. X.

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  7. faculty at R1 with grad program

    As someone who is occasionally contacted in this way, I can say that I respond with the generic response that “Very outdated data” mentioned (“Glad to hear of your interest, please do apply”).
    These emails are usually a pretty transparent attempt to get a leg up in admissions. In most cases, it doesn’t seem fair to me to intervene — the admissions committee should give each applicant the same consideration. It could also become pretty onerous to correspond with merely prospective applicants (unless they have a specific question that cannot be answered by the department website, and whose answer could determine whether or not it makes sense for them to apply to our program).

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  8. Assistant Professor

    My own experience (about a decade ago now): I applied to PhD programs from a “non-traditional” background and after some time out of school and I contacted faculty members at departments I was interested in to learn more about them, and whether someone with my profile could be a fit for what their department was even willing to consider for admission.
    I had helpful conversations with people at a bunch of programs, and in one case got into a program that on paper wouldn’t have accepted me based on their official admissions requirements but I believe having talked to the department in advance, they were willing to waive. I got into multiple programs – I had talked to people at every single one of them – and I decided not to apply to some programs based on these conversations as well.
    To be clear I was not writing to people saying “I love your work and want to come work with you,” nor would I endorse anyone do this. Ultimately, I was contacting people to get the information I needed to make a determination about my future, not to build goodwill for my application. While it may be burdensome for faculty members to field such questions, these are weighty decisions people are making and there probably should be some available mechanism(s) for people to have questions answered and get relevant information to making their decisions (it isn’t all about the department evaluating the prospective student, the prospective student also needs to be able to evaluate the department – especially since PhD programs are not just school, they are also jobs).
    However, if as some comments here seem to suggest, departments as a policy don’t want prospective students contacting them or individual faculty members, they might consider clearly stating this on their prospective students/grad admissions webpage.

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  9. Grad program faculty

    Just popping in again to note that huge numbers of people are applying to philosophy PhD programs (leiter recently had some threads about this you can look at). Just imagine what it would be like for faculty if 500 applicants to a PhD program all decided to email even just one faculty member at that school. Let’s say they have 20 faculty… you get the picture (though in fact probably the emails would be concentrated mostly on fewer than the full faculty). Also, at my program the people who do this often email multiple faculty. Don’t email faculty. (I also agree with the earlier commentator that if it ever does influence people, it’s unfair, and that it is good for faculty as a matter of policy to have a boilerplate email response or simply ignore the emails.)

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  10. JDF

    I think that people are being overly cynical here.
    In the sciences, it’s customary to contact a lab before appliny, and in Europe, it’s also customary to contact potential PhD supervisors (though, usually, not potential MA/BPhil supervisors) in the humanities. So students are probably just getting generic advice from friends or advisors which happens to not apply to the humanities in America.
    If I make sense as a potential supervisor, I encourage the student to apply and say that admissions decisions will be made by the faculty as a whole. If not, I direct them to someone who would be more suitable, if anyone. And that’s it.
    It takes about 30 seconds to be kind.

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  11. Kapto

    I think it’s a bad idea because my sense is that many philosophy professors share the perspective of Professor L (above). They frown on naked ambition and transparent attempts to win favor for reasons other than philosophical talent or skill. A senior colleague of mine once reacted to an email with “Ew, I think I’m being networked,” the last word uttered the way you’d say “stalked” or “mentally undressed.”
    I myself don’t respond these ways. I’ve been in other fields where adults understand that this is what people sometimes feel the need to do, for understandable reasons, and so they either play along or politely demur. But they never take it personally as fraudulent flattery or fake friendliness, in a way that might actually make these obsequious overtures counterproductive.
    But again, that’s other fields. In this one, things being what they are, I’d advise against it.

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  12. whatever

    I would say it’s a roll of the dice. It looks like if you write emails to most of the posters above me, they’ll get mad at you (for silly reasons, it seems to me; what an uncharitable interpretation, thinking this sort of behavior from eager, vulnerable students is about winning favor – weird).
    I came from a European MA program where it was standard to have people in mind at programs that you’d like to work with on the PhD, and not at all improper to reach out. In my case, I did reach out to 4-5 professors, and was met by kind and polite responses from faculty who were happy to hear about my interest in their work and that I was applying.
    What happened with me was that many of these folks noted in their replies how they were not on the hiring committee that year, and hence they would have no say in my application. And, as it turned out, I did not get accepted at the programs where this was true. Which might mean these folks didn’t go out of their way to tell their colleagues about my application, despite their own interest in my interest. And that’s fine. That is how it should be.

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  13. Grad program faculty

    To be clear I would never get mad at a student for doing this or somehow hold it against them or punish them. I posted the above because I think we should try to firmly establish an open, public norm about not doing it (at North American institutions), and this is a place people go to learn what the norms are. I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever talked to about this who expressed annoyance about it—in particular we all know that norms are different in different places. It would just be better for everyone if no one did it (at North American institutions—sorry for not restricting earlier, which I should have).

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