important questions to ask

[shock-me-sane]

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I have gotten into contact with several professors current students through the professors.

I feel like I have a million random questions, but I was hoping that people here could give some guidance about the most important things to find out about a program/professor.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Ollie123]

Some key questions:

1) What direction do you see your research going over the next 5 years?
2) What sort of careers do your previous students now have?
3) What kind of funding is there for students and where does that funding come from (teaching or research)
4) What kind of equipment do you have in the lab (if you are in a gadget-oriented subfield)

These are just examples, I'm sure others will add more. Those were the first ones that sprung to mind as things that made or broke my interest in a program though.

 

[JockNerd]

5) How do you usually work authorship on papers from your lab?
6) What funding/research/teaching is available over the summer?
7) Have lab students been successful in obtaining grants or scholarships from national funding sources? How much money do students typically manage to pull in?
8) Where have students presented lately?
9) Where have students published lately?
10) Where do students from the prof's lab work now? If they're in practice, did they want to be?
11) Where have students from the lab done internships?
12) How well do past cohorts get along?

 

[Ollie123]

Oooo, I forgot to mention #7, that's a good one. Even though I ended up turning down a place that did for one that didn't, if the school/lab has a track record for getting people F31s....😍

 

[KillerDiller]

13) What is your style as a research mentor?

 

[JockNerd]

13) What is your style as a research mentor?

Ooooo--good one. Find out about things like how autonomous students in the lab are (e.g. you should be picking your own thesis topic, not being handed one) and how involved the prof wants to be (some profs want 5 revisions of a powerpoint you do for a class talking about your thesis, some only want to see a final version, some say "you can do it fine" and don't want to see it at all, as a hypothetical example).

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

14) How do you like your coffee? 😀

-t

 

[ducle7]

What do you do if you wrote an email to a professor you're interested in working with and they write back a lot of information and seem enthusiastic, and encourage you to ask questions so then you send them a second email with more detailed questions and they don't reply back?

What would you do if you wrote to a professor for the first time and they didn't reply back about whether they are accepting students- since this can be important info to know...as in potentially saving you an application if they're not accepting students--would you write to them again?

 

[LM02]

Quite honestly, these are great questions - to ask on the interview.

At this stage of the game (especially right now at the beginning of the semester), most professors are not going to have the time to talk details. I think you want to keep things short and simple.

For those that encourage you to ask more questions, I would still keep things simple and focused on the research - questions about the direction of the lab, current or pending grants, etc. Save the questions about mentorship style, F31s, and former students for later.

 

[JockNerd]

Quite honestly, these are great questions - to ask on the interview.

I disagree. Applicants should walk into the interview knowing this stuff. ESPECIALLY funding. These are questions that will help you knock schools off your list of places to apply. Don't ask how many people in the dept. matched for internships, obviously, because info like that is on the web page, and don't make a litany of questions, but I'd say definitely ask the sort of questions that are listed in this thread and that seem important to you WAY before interviews and definitely before you even apply.

Ducle, I'd say give 'em at least 2-3 weeks to reply. We just passed a super-busy time in the academic year, and profs are finally getting manageable to-do lists. You still have plenty of time to contact them, too, in my opinion.

 

[LM02]

I disagree. Applicants should walk into the interview knowing this stuff. ESPECIALLY funding. These are questions that will help you knock schools off your list of places to apply. Don't ask how many people in the dept. matched for internships, obviously, because info like that is on the web page, and don't make a litany of questions, but I'd say definitely ask the sort of questions that are listed in this thread and that seem important to you WAY before interviews and definitely before you even apply.

Ducle, I'd say give 'em at least 2-3 weeks to reply. We just passed a super-busy time in the academic year, and profs are finally getting manageable to-do lists. You still have plenty of time to contact them, too, in my opinion.

Sorry - didn't mean to suggest that funding was not important at this stage of the game. I completely agree about that. But authorship decisions, former students and F31s? Having completed grad school - and now as a faculty member - I would be turned off by these questions, as I see it as getting way ahead of oneself.

Having several years of experience over most of you, I have had the opportunity to talk directly with many faculty members about this issue of the pre-application email surge. You would be surprised at how many faculty members really don't enjoy this - most will be polite and respond, but you don't want to overdo it.

 

[JockNerd]

Sorry - didn't mean to suggest that funding was not important at this stage of the game. I completely agree about that. But authorship decisions, former students and F31s? Having completed grad school - and now as a faculty member - I would be turned off by these questions, as I see it as getting way ahead of oneself.

Having several years of experience over most of you, I have had the opportunity to talk directly with many faculty members about this issue of the pre-application email surge. You would be surprised at how many faculty members really don't enjoy this - most will be polite and respond, but you don't want to overdo it.

Oh, oh, lines crossed. 😛 I was going along with this part of the OP's first post:

I have gotten into contact with several professors current students through the professors.

I intended my list of questions to be asked of the students (and a few are good to ask the prof). And again, I hope I wasn't sounding like I was saying "ask all these questions!"; I think people should ask those sorts of questions, but only the ones that are actually important to their application selections.

 

[shock-me-sane]

thanks so much for the questions.

And to LM02, I am mainly looking to harrass...um question the students that are currently in the lab. I am keeping it light with the professors, except the ones that specifically question me and then I reply with more than just a thank you.