Thread by @Oludeewon

Why is writing Email to Potential Supervisors Important for MSc and PhD Funding?

You can apply to many schools and get admission with little or no funding, especially in the USA, Australia, and Canada.

However, if you need a fully-funded scholarship or almost-funded scholarship, you need to first contact a professor. These are the reasons:

A. Professors usually receive grants and funds from the school or organisations. These funds are in thousands or millions of dollars.

The Professors are then required to publish papers in that research area within a specific period of time (usually 1,2 or 3 years, depending on the type of research). Inability to publish papers means that the professors won't receive the funds, and he/she...

..won't be promoted (Research output accounts for about 70% while teaching account for about 30% when a professor applies for promotion). Also, more Promotion means more relevance and more money for the Professor (who doesn't like Promotion😄). He can use then use the

...money to hire new students. Therefore, Professors are looking for people who already have research ideas or understand their latest research (you can know this by reading their recent papers), not someone who they have to spoon-feed. They have the money to finance your studies

..from the grants they have received, but they need to be sure you can help them publish papers as soon as possible while they simply guide you and also have time for teaching and administrative duties.

Hence, once you identify a professor in your field, make sure you read at least 3-4 of his/her latest publications before sending any email, so that you can impress him/her. Use links such as pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov or scholar.google.com to search for the name of the

Professor, then download his/her latest paper.

B. There is an annual school ranking by different organisations, and part of the ranking is the research output (measured by the number of papers published and citations per year) of that school. For example,

The Times Higher Education World University Ranking gives research Influence, Research volume, Teaching and Learning environment 30% each in its ranking (universityrankings.ch/methodology/ti…). This is why schools always give priority to publications.

C. When your application is being reviewed by the admission committee, Mr K, who has contacted a professor may have higher chances of getting admission and funding compared to Mr T who applied without

contacting a Professor, even if he has a better CGPA. This is because the committee believes that Mr K already understands what he is coming to do.

D. If you are thinking of a career in Academics, especially after PhD, publication is non-negotiable.

The more you publish, the higher your chances of getting a position as a Faculty member. If you also want a job, publications will give you an added advantage. It means that you have contributed to existing knowledge in your field.

I hope you now see the reasons why email is very important is securing a scholarship.

Next question, How do I write an email that can get a good reply from a professor? Watch Out!!

RT and tell your friends.

cc:@MomentsWithBren @adexmee @ritapurity @AcademicChatter @amuta_ann