<p>In one of the applications, there’s a session:</p>
<p>“Please give the names, if any, and professional affiliations of individuals most responsible for your decision to apply to the Graduate School of Arts and Science. Your response should name (a) individuals from outside the program who influenced your application decision and (b) faculty in the program with whom you would like to work.”</p>
<p>I understand the significance of part b, but is there a purpose for part a?</p>
<p>Why not? It’s not asking if you contacted the professors but rather whose work and research influenced you to apply there.</p>
<p>I don’t get it. How would the work and research by someone not in the program attract me to apply to that program?</p>
<p>I actually heard of that school and went to the school website and found the research going on interesting and the curriculum attractive. I emailed a few students there and they were positive. That’s how I settled on it. Not particularly someone outside the program influenced my decision. But putting nothing sounds not very good. Or doesn’t it?</p>
<p>So? It’s also a way for making sure that those professors actually read your application. Sometimes the administrative people don’t want to read through the statement to find the names.</p>
<p>This sounds like where you list the PIs you’ve worked with, who (assumedly) influenced your decision to pursue graduate studies. You can also extend the list to anyone else you didn’t necessarily work with but who motivated you to apply to grad school nonetheless.</p>
<p>thanks, ticklemepink and kryptonsa. i guess i know whose names to put down now</p>