Math graduate school

BrownParent
Sat, 01 May 2010 19:08:56 +0000

I agree to ask your professors before you contact anyone, maybe your prof will have an introduction for you, maybe not. My daughter was advised not to contact professors because they are flooded with inquiries from overseas applicants who don’t know better, and they generally do not appreciate it. They will see your application in committee. I’d think you don’t want to risk alienating someone, especially if they say on the website they will ignore you.

Ironically, though, she did contact one and that is the person she is working with now. She had a good reason. She had seen him speak at her school so was interested in his work, and she particularly wanted to know if he was accepting grad students (none were listed currently) because that was a part dependency for applying to that school. He sent an inviting response, some of his papers for her to read and she sent one follow up email to bring him up to date on accomplishments since the application. So that seemed to go well and at that school, each professor gets one stand alone admit apart from committee, so I’d guess a personal contact may have helped a bit.