152: Five Key Reasons To Contact Faculty Before Applying to Grad School

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Hola hola everyone. Welcome back to the Grad School Femtoring podcast. This is your host, Dra. Yvette. And for today's solo episode, I have an episode about the five key reasons to contact faculty before applying to grad school. Now, I believe you're going to be listening to this episode in late August, or sometime in September. We are at the start of the fall term, which means that for some of you, this is going to be the time that you're going to be applying to grad school. If that's the case, then you might want to consider reaching out to faculty.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Why am I saying this? I'm saying this because this is also what I'm saying to my current clients. I have been working with a few folks who are working on the grad school application process. One of the steps in the coaching process is to get them to reach out to prospective faculty, so that they can get more information on the program, and so that they can find out all of the things that I'm going to share today. So hopefully, what I share will encourage you, motivate you to reach out to professors, to get more info and to help to solidify, to validate your reasons for applying to the programs that you're choosing to apply to this coming year.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

All right. The first reason that you should consider reaching out to faculty before applying to grad school is to find out if they're even accepting students this year. That's right. You cannot work under the assumption that someone who you find on a faculty profile for a program that you're interested in is still there, is still accepting students, and is going to want to work with you. You never really know if a website is updated. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes. For all you know, they might not be accepting students this year. Maybe they're doing something different where they're only accepting students of a particular sub field this year, and they will accept students in a different sub field next year. What if you're in that different subfield? You won't know to wait until next year to apply unless you reach out to them.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Sometimes departments are facing budget cuts. If they're facing budget cuts, they might be accepting less students this year. Maybe the opposite is happening. Maybe last year, they didn't accept students, they accepted fewer students. And this year, they have more room for new applicants and for new admits. What if this year is the year that they're bringing in new faculty? There might be someone who might be perfect for you to work with. But you don't know that they're there, because they haven't updated their faculty profile page yet. So it is useful to reach out to professors- at the very least, to find out if they are accepting students this year. Because if they're not, there's no point in you wasting your time and your money applying.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

The second reason I want to encourage you to reach out to faculty is to see if you have good rapport with this person. I cannot stress how important it is to figure out if this is the kind of person you can envision having a long term professional relationship with. If you're applying to Master's and doctoral programs, you're going to be engaging with this person for the next one to three years, if it's a master's program, four to eight years if it's a PhD program. And it could be even longer assuming that this person is going to continue writing letters for you as you move on in your career, or is going to continue to serve as a reference for you as you go on to apply for other jobs. It's really important that you can picture yourself working with this person, that you enjoy their mentoring or advising style, that you get along with each other. You won't know this unless you have a conversation with this person.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Okay, we're going to the third reason. Why should you reach out to faculty? To get a general sense of the program and get your answers for questions about the program that you can not get answered, again, from a website alone. If you meet with a professor, they may share information with you about anything that's coming up- that's not necessarily easily located or updated on a website. This can include letting you know about the type of funding that graduate students typically get. They may be able to tell you a little bit more about job placements or recent graduates. They can talk to you about the departmental culture and what it's like there. They can also talk to you about the department's relationship with the larger campus or surrounding community. And you can also ask them about where they see themselves going in the future, where they see their work going in the future. What they see for the future of that program and that department, because the future of that program and that department will also be reflective of you and the experience that you're going to have there. So if you have any questions about the program as a whole, you can reach out to them and ask them these questions too.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Reason number four for contacting and meeting with faculty before applying to grad programs is to have someone remember you and vouch for you if they are part of the admissions review process. I know that a lot of times the reason why students don't reach out to faculty is because they may be intimidated. They may be overwhelmed. They may be feeling like an imposter. They may be feeling not enough. They may be concerned that this person is not going to think they're good enough to get into their program, not going to want to work with them, and instead of helping them, it's going to hurt them in their application process.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

But more often than not, the opposite happens. More often than not, you may have a really wonderful, amazing conversation with this person. More often than not, this person might get excited at the prospect of you applying. More often than not, this person might be willing to help you and support you. Sometimes they might be on the admissions committee, and they will vouch for you if they're going through and reviewing the applications. It's more common for departments- that's not to say this is the case across the board. But more and more programs are doing what is called a holistic review of an application.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

What that means is that rather than centering their shortlist solely on GPAs and solely on GRE- Graduate Record Exam scores, they are taking into account a person's entire application, including their essays, including their recommendation letters. And that is to say that you have a higher chance of getting in, even if you believe that you don't have the most competitive GPA or GRE- which tends to happen if you are underrepresented in your program. A lot of students of color don't tend to do well in standardized exams. Why is that? Because most of us don't have the financial resources to be able to prepare adequately for these exams. It's not even an issue of you knowing the material. It's an issue of lack of equity and access to study materials to be able to get a competitive score.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

If they are moving and pushing towards a holistic review, which is, like I said becoming more common, you have a higher chance of getting in. And if someone knows you, remembers your name, actually wants to work with you, they're going to have an opportunity to advocate for you- at the very least to get you on the shortlist, or from the shortlist, get you to an interview stage. In some cases, to actually vouch for you to get in. So meeting with someone, and if the meeting goes well, and if they do show interest in working with you, those are all good signs. They cannot promise you that you're gonna get in. I don't think that- no single professor can make that kind of decision alone. They cannot promise you those things before you apply. But they can certainly try their best to advocate for you.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

That's another really, really good reason. And if they're not in the admissions committee, they can still help you in other ways. They might refer you to other people who might be good people for you to work with.They might actually offer to review your application materials. You never know what kind of support you might get from this person. You won't know unless you put yourself out there and start having conversations with faculty.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

Now the last reason to reach out to faculty is to get referrals for other people who they might know. I know I kind of hinted at this before. Why do I say this? Because what if everything goes wrong in that meeting, and you just don't have really good rapport. It feels awkward. It feels uncomfortable. If this just doesn't feel like the right person for you. Well, that is okay, because this is an interview process for you to interview them as well. It's better to find out now that they're not the right person for you- again, like I said earlier- than waste your time and money applying to work with someone who you're not ultimately going to want to work with. And you can still gain something from that meeting.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

One, you find out- this is definitely not a place I want to apply for. Or maybe it is the place, but not with that person. And two, you can always ask them if they know anybody who's doing work that you might be interested in, who's doing work that overlaps with your interests. If they refer you to someone else, then you have a name to use. You can reach out to that next person. Send them an email and say, professor so and so recommended I reach out to you. Professor so and so mentioned your name as someone I might be able to work with. Are you available for a meeting? Referrals are really great, because they also will let you know about opportunities and programs that you might not have previously considered.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

So that's it. Those are the five reasons I really want to encourage you to reach out to faculty. If you're still feeling a little bit nervous and intimidated about the process, I also encourage you to listen to a couple of other episodes. I have an episode all about the process of how to actually contact and meet with prospective faculty. It includes some suggested language for emailing them, and it includes some questions you might want to ask them during your meetings- some of that prep work. That's episode 35, contacting and meeting with prospective faculty.

Dra. Yvette Martínez-Vu

If you're still a little bit uneasy, you're still wondering, I wonder what these professors are thinking about me? How do I make a good impression? What's going on behind the scenes? You can listen to episode 78, what faculty think and say about grad students with Dr. Ester Trujillo. Alright, that's it for today everyone. I hope that you found this episode helpful. And if you do reach out to faculty, keep me posted. I'm always curious to hear how things work out for my listeners, okay? I'll talk to you all later.