prof letting

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Hi,I prepared this document for my personal use and thought it might help some of you ppl too. I have collected the contents from the various threads listed below(there is no addition/contribution on my part..just Ctrl+CCtrl+V). It is not organised or in a guidelike format. It just contains the important posts in these threads. Though it might save you the time of going through these threads, you can always pore through them. I might have invariably missed something.

I wish to thanks Edulix for having such a wealth of information which no consultant will be able to provide us even if we paid them in $$$.

All the best

kind regards,kuchcha(email: kuchcha at rediffmail period com)

P.S: I have used Mozilla,OpenOffice.Org and Ubuntu to prepare this. I have got them for free too and hence I owe this credit(of watever little value it might be).

!!!Support Open Source!!!

The content collected below has been taken from these Links:

http://www.edulix.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30441


http://www.edulix.com/application/Profletting.html



Edulix Advisory Page on Contacting Professorsfor Information on Research Assistantship

Thanks, mainly to the Internet, it has now become easy and also advisable for aspiring graduate students to establish some kind of professional contacts with professors at their programs of choice even before setting foot on campus. The contact is done, primarily to seek advice and information from professors who are actively pursuing research in the areas of mutual interest to the aspiring graduate student and the professor.

Recognizing the importance of such cordial and professional contacts (what we call here at Edulix as

Please follow posting guidelines.


"Profletting"), the Edulix Academic Advisory Panel has released the following guidelines for its membership.

1. Do your Homework First. This involves going to the website of the programs of interest and browsing through the websites of professors that outline their teaching and research areas. Use popular search engines like "Google" to search for papers that the professors have published. In general, assistant and associate professors tend to be very much active in research, particularly cuttingedge research. Your search should, therefore, should concentrate on them. 2. The introductory email should be 1. Short with a maximum length of 1page. 2. Cordial, polite and up to the point. 3. Do not ask financial aid in your first contact. First determine whether the professor has ongoing researches and have opening for RA. 3. The email should contain the following: 1. Introduction. Mention your name, your major area of study, the institution you graduated from, GRE and TOEFL scores and your GPA or aggregates. Also if possible indicate your rank standing. 2. Details on your Research Interests. This section should contain description of your interest areas, how you found about the research interests of the professor, your observation that there is a mutual interest in selected research areas. Also include any course work, work experience, project work or research that you may have done that is directly or indirectly related to the professor's work. 3. Reasons why you think you are Qualified to work with the Professor. This section is where you are expected to convince the professor that you are qualified and possess the right combination of skills (written and oral communication skills, ability for independent study and research, track record of good academic, work and research experience). Be honest and do not embellish your records. If you do not have enough experience in research or industry but possess enough will and discipline to carry good research, indicate that. 4. Concluding Remarks. Wrapup your email with a polite salutation and list of references, websites with your resume, etc. 4. Once you send your email, wait for 23 weeks. If there is no reply, do send another message. If the professor does not reply to these emails, then respect his wishes and discontinue communication.

Sample Letter:

Dear Professor A. XXXX

My name is S. G. and I am a graduate of the Asian Institute of Technology at Bangkok with a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. My GRE score is 1970 (A=710, Q=760, V= 500). I had scored 240270 in TOEFL while my CGPA stands at 3.2/4.0. My rank is 10th in a graduating class of 75 students.

I am interested in pursuing a graduate study and an eventual career in the areas of wireless communications. I have taken 2 undergraduate courses in this area and my final project involved designing an interface and a software architecture for a WAPbased browser. The project won an honorable mention in the annual college of engineering technology competition. I also had a Summer internship at the Kyocera wireless unit here in Bangkok in 2001.



I became aware of your similar research interest in this area through browsing your homepage and also your publications. I have applied for a master's degree program in your institution and have a lot of interest in joining your research group. Because of my good grasp of the theory of wireless communication and the projects I have done together with my experience as a Summer intern at Kyocera Wireless, I am confident that I can be a productive member of your research group. I will definitely be very glad to be considered for any current or upcoming graduate research or project assistantship you may have.

You may find more information on my academic and industry background on my site at:

http://www.edulix.com/shared/communitymember.tcl?user_id=9999

With my best regards,

S.G.Bangkok, Thailand

Document Prepared by:A. Bikila Edulix Advisory Panel

Profletting (called as proffing here in my institute) is very important according to me. I have proffed to about 99 profs and i have got about 25 replies (such a low ratio was not unexpected and this a good ratio actually). Some of them encouraged me to apply, some told me that i had fair chances and most of them just send me the links through which i can apply (as if i am not able to find that out). Profletting gives you a good idea of whether the professors are really interested in your profile, if they are then they surely will be replying and encouraging you like anything to apply (that is one thing i have noticed in some of the replies). This will help a lot in the initial short listing of your universities for application. Also from the replies received through profletting is that you can come to know whether a professor is taking students the year you are applying (really helpful for those applying for PhD – I do not know much about MS applying).

University of Pennyslvania (the grad sec there) had written to me that they do not preevaluate people according to the emails they receive and blah blah......... But i was not bothered. So do not get bothered about the negative replies you get and also do not worry if you do not get any reply. Anyway it is just a mail know, what have we got to lose except for some time. But the good part is that we get to know if the professors see us as a potential candidate or not, which they will be evaluating according to the qualifications of the students working under them. So if one professor encourages you like anything to apply and they become interested in your profile then you are lucky know (just like taking a lottery where you do not have to pay for the ticket). Most of my friends have profletted and they applied to only those universities from which they got replies and finally got admit in most of them (about 80 %). So i believe that profletting can reduce the risk involved in University selection for application and would suggest everyone to have a go at it.



Things to note while profletting (from my experience)

1. Proflet to only maximum two professors in a univ in a particular area (wait for some days for the reply, if they do not reply pick another set of profs and email them)

2. Select the profs you want to proflett only in the specific area you want to work (do not go department wise, select a specific area in the department once i made a mistake there and a prof was kind enough to reply that he does not do any research in my field of interest and suggested me other profs who work in my area of interest)

3. Do reply to those who encourage you by saying thanks (negative replies you can delete or archive, do not bother to reply to them. the reply is optional but would be better if you do, might encourage them to reply to other similar mails they may receive in future)

4. Do not focus on a particular university, proflet to all the universities who are involved in your research (you get a better idea of what kind of students the profs in the universities really are expecting)

5. Save all the mails for which you get replies since that can later be useful to others who are applying in future (we can get the names of the professors who surely will be replying this really helps, after all there are some good profs out there)

6. When you write the mail take care of the following points (according to my experience)

In the first paragraph, mention that you are applying for fall or spring (include year), then mention your GRE and TOEFL scores and also percentages in graduation and post graduation (do not write your X and XII marks these marks are not needed in the mail but should be mentioned in the resume).

In the second paragraph, mention your ranks in the class (say for eg. first from a class of 50 students) for all the degrees you have received. Then mention the prizes that you have received (this should be for the projects you did in UG or PG, mention the main ones only which could highlight your research capabilities). As a last line you can mention that you have attached your resume.

In the last paragraph, first mention the specific areas that you are interested (please be as specific as possible), then tell that you took liberty of going through the professor's profile and then say that you are interested and then ask about your prospects of getting an admit in the university to work under him.

FINALLY CHECK FOR SPELLING MISTAKES AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS if not considered this could indicate that you casually wrote the mail and that you are not so interested (Be careful that you write "i" as "I" and not as "i" note this point).

While preparing the resume highlight all your achivements and in a chornological order it is advisable to keep the resume to upto maximum two pages. Also mention at the bottom of the resume



the statement given below* References and Transcripts available on request

All the best for profletting.

One more addition to my earlier post. In the signature of the mail, please do not write your entire address and all, you can maximum mention your name (and may include a mobile number). While addressing in the mail you can use

Dear Prof. ................. for professors.Dear Dr. .............. for associate professors or assistant professors (depends on preference)

Avoid Hi Prof. or Hi Dr. and you need not use Respected Prof. or Respected Dr.

Hope i have covered all the points that i took care of while profletting. If anything else comes up i will let you know.

Lesson learnt:

DO NOT send mails to more than one prof in the same department at a time. Atleast give 10 days of break. In case, if you have to send, put in some effort and write a different mail but do care about the time gap.

Question: If the prof replies by saying "I encourage you to apply to our department if you want to do a PhD"............ does it mean somethin good or does it mean that he's just being nice and formal and will say this to lots of students?This simply means that the professor may find some interest in your profile if you're applying for PhD. Researchwise, they hardly show interest to MS candidates. If you're really seeking a PhD and the Univ is good enough for that, this reply could be taken as a favorable sign. Mind, professors wont give their time just to send nice and formal letters.

Q9 when to start prof. letting??

this is a very subjective question and its answer depends from individual to individual. however some generalizations may be made. for a student going for his PhD post MS, prof lettering may be done after getting an admit or mabe as late as august or september the year before the fall term he wishes to apply.for a student pursuing PhD post bachelors, the ideal time is in aprilmay. the purogative is on the student to build a strongish profile by then and convince prof of his seriousness. Also try and attend



an international conference by then for networking purposes. that would more or less fulfill your cause

Avoid resending a letter before say 3 weeks time. I hardly know of profs who dont see every mail they get. So resending often shows desperation. They may read it after a month but they surely will. I got a reply form a prof a month and a half after I sent one to him. If they dont reply its either they dont have funding or they dont have time currently or yeah they don have interest in you.

So relax.

Rakesh

posting some replies i got (but i had contacted before applying)..Mayur do mail to them to get personal experience Wink well these rae few..i had mailed countless no of profs and to post all replies is tough as i need to search for those mails..1Quote:Thank you for your interest in my research program. Unfortunately I donot anticiapte any new openings this coming year as I am on sabbaticalthe entire year. I will be away on travel much of the time. If yourbackground includes signal processing, you have a choice to make,however ..... going toward a MS degree in Computer Engineering or an MSdegree in CCSP (communications, control and signal processing). Theseareas lie in separate parts of the ECE department, with differingadmissions procedures and standards. Once you decide which area youwould lke to study you should send your application materials to theECEDepartment, with a clear indication of your degree objective. If youened financial aid then that should also be clearly indicated on theform. The ECE Department will then route your application toappropriate faculty within the program of your choice. It is notgenerally a good idea to send applications information directly tofaculty .....

Good luck in your admissions ....

S ButnerProfessor, UCSB/ECE

2

Quote:



Thanks for your inquiry regarding my research. I do not currently plantotake on any new students or postdocs as I am fully staffed. Forfurtherinformation on admissions, send an email to [email protected]

Steve Long

3

Quote:I refer you to prom knepper for the rf work. I am interested, but donot do it. [email protected]

4Quote:I do not anticipate an opening in your areas of interest and would notbe able to support your graduate studies at Boston University.

Our admissions process usually collects materials in a central site anddistributes materials to faculty based on your stated interests. Iwould not make a direct aid offer to a new student, in any case.

Good luck in your search for a position!

Michael Ruane

5Quote:Thank you for your interest in our graduate program in Astronomyand Space Physics here at Boston University. I will attach a brochurecontaining information on our program. All of our admitted graduatestudents will have full financial support in the form of a TA, RA, orfellowship. You may have already taken a look at our web site:

URL> http://www.bu.edu/astronomy/

After you have perused the web site and mailed package, please letmeknow if you have further questions about our program.

You can also find the info. on forms and applications from theGraduateSchool at http://www.bu.edu/cas/graduate/index.html



Good luck in your search for a graduate program and I hope that BUwillbe the right school for you.

Regards, John Clarke

6

Quote:Thank you for your interest in ASU. Some in my group are indeedinvolved inradio astronomy related topics. I will ask our graduate secretary Ms.ShawnDubon <[email protected]> to send you the application materials.

Good luck,

hope this helps but i didnt know this funda of contacting profs after apping so cant say abt that....

I contacted about 6 profs back in September, but only two of them responed.

1. From Umich

Quote:While you work sounds interesting, we do not currently have funding for a new grad student. We are at the end of a 5 year grant, and until we hear about the competative renewal, it would be irrespondible of us to take on an incoming grad student.

2. From CMU

Quote:Thank you for your inquiry. Although at this point I cannot tell youwhether I will be able to offer you a position in my group, Iencourage you to apply. You may do so online at:

http://www.cmu.edu/bme

The deadline is February 1st for the Fall semester.

With my best regards,



Jelena Kovacevic

NOTE: I am awaiting decisions from both the schools.

These replies didnt look that encouraging. Reply from CMU looked like an automated reply Very Happy

Regards,Waqas Majeed

Hey! WHich College? which Prof and what dept?Area of interest?

1) Check his area of Interests( usually listed on the department faculty page or research group staff listing)

2) Check work done by the research group or Lab to which the person belongs

for exampleSay, a certain Prof Rama Chellapa, in UMD CP, Ece Dept has interests in Image and Signal Processing!Check his page,(usually from the dept's faculty lists) for which group he belongs to, say he belongs to the IVPL Research Group. then go to the labs/groups website and check links like research and papers/publications and seeu might find he has been authoring a lot of Visualisation papers recently and has written books on Computer Vision,

Viola! thats his research Interest!

3) if this doesnt work u can just look for the various research groups and labs and see whos attached to this group and this way find ur profs name!!!( usually this approach takes longer and your professor might just be a consultant in this lab, while he is the head of another lab)

4) look at past projects or papers from the department, eg VTech has a archive of all thesis submitted by their grad students. see the thesis and check what type of projects this person has guided in the past(This approach is also long drawn)

5) look for the indian student organisation and then contact two or more people in your department, ( if ur lucky u might find someone working under the same prof or in the same research group)



mail all of them asking abt the profs interests... and the work he does.....( i tried this and it worked for me, gives u a good idea of who has too many students and who might take on someone else)

If none of these work, let us know who and what and which college i can look it up for u, many people searching, we might find what ur looking for!excuse the lack of proper sentence formation , am working on a unix script and testing it simultaenously!

Best of lUck and hope all that helped!

that was just the first mail I sent to 56 profs at the same time. Where I just introduced myself to all of them. I worked on one by one as I got replies from one of them.

These are the replies:(very few though!)

Quote:>Mayur,> >> >Please be advised that I have received your email and I will be glad> to work with you in the signal processing area if you choose that> field. Note that our graduate program is very flexible and students> need to choose their own faculty advisors based on their research> areas. I also be glad to answer any questions related to our graduate> program if you have any.> >> >Thank you for your interest.

here I told a prof abt my interest in telecom and he wrote

Quote:Mayur,

As I stated, I am in the DSP area. If you are interested inCommunications, feel free to contact xxxxxfor additional information

now this one doesnt relate directly, but this is how THEY respond:

Quote:Dear NKM (I am sorry, but I don't know whether you are a young lady or a gent):



I don't know how I received a copy of your inquiry to Dr. Ozdamar, but as a longtime member of the faculty, I would like to assure you that you should have no fear about your preparation. This department offered only MS and PhD degrees in BME until 1989. Virtually all the students had their undergraduate degrees in other areas of engineering.As a consequence, the MS program includes three courses in Unified Medical Sciences, which provide a broad background for further studies. Two of the three courses are mandatory, the third one is optional. These courses deal with cellular, organ level and neural systems.

Your background and interest seem appropriate for our graduate program.

With best wishes for a successful career in biomedical engineering,

The professors are most concerned in replying. And they are always happy to talk on a subject if it really relates to them. I thank them all for their replies.

if you r interested and have no exp then i am assuming that you are having very good concepts of these topics and hence have decided to do that...in such a case do write few lines(note few lines) describing what u like in those topics.....for example i have written for radio astronomy ,i do not have prior experience in it nor am a physics student though my work somehow finds its application in radio astronomy...i wrote few sentences about signal analysis and their significance which interests me a lot which is a part of radio astronomy.......and i got favourable replies also for this..so u need to reveal that u know abt the topic well...that will do the work for u...write in that way but take care that your mail doesn't become a big one....

RA/TA are not offered unless ou complete 1 semester here atleast for MS.some exceptions do exist but normally its not issued in 1st sem unless PhD student.Its good to rite an email to prof may help sometimes as it did for me.

@ujwalk

My scenario was quite different.Me and my classmate had got admits frm UMKC. he had a better profyl than mine tas y he gt scholarship worth 7500$ (60% of my tution waiver)I got admit but without scholarship. Then I had to email professors about it. One of my profs had replied to me about gettin eligible for that scholarship. Then i was issued new i20 with Scholarship.

When I was seeing thru my file here during check in @ grad office I saw my file marked with professor comments which goes liek this (this candidate has good GPA please issue him Scholarship



irrespective f his Low GRE). Then I realized the importance of my marks.

Thus it helps sometimes if yu contact professors.Well after coming here its just matter of some networking and smartness which differs from person to person. I have seen ppl having 3 oncampus jobs (incld TA/RA at same time) & ppl having no jobs at all and fighting to get one at any cost come wat may (still fighting). so it all depends on the individual and his followup skills with places where he has applied.


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