#15: Post-application follow-up emails

One to three weeks after you have submitted each application, compose follow-up emails to as many faculty members as you can manage. Because I found this task to be so overwhelming, I made the rule that I would only write letters when I had something specific and profound to say about my desire to work with them. I could have avoided this problem if I’d followed Step #7 and started reading their work one year in advance. Following this step guarantees you that you will develop some kind of personal history with their work; you may even write about or at least draw inspiration from their writing in your own work before you make your applications.

Following my “only write emails that are informed and meaningful” rule meant that I failed to send emails to an entire program (Minnesota), simply because I had not personally read their work. I was rejected from this program. However, I sent two emails to faculty at Berkeley and never received responses; I was also rejected from there. I sent one email to Northwestern and did not get a response, but was accepted to the program several days later (!?). The faculty that did respond to my follow-up emails offered a range of reactions. One professor responded with extreme enthusiasm, and called the head of Graduate Admissions to give him my name as a “special case.” Several thanked me warmly for my email, but made it clear that they did not get to decide who was admitted. Through another follow-up email, I discovered that the main person with whom I wanted to work had just moved to another school (information that the university website did not in any way reflect).