Question related to choosing potential mentors in PHD application

[bluebluesky]

This is related to the applications to clinical doctoral program.
I am very confused about listing professors in personal statement.
Even if professors' research areas are similar they are usually doing somewhat different stuff (e.g, different types of anxiety disorders or different research or treatment approachs). Some schools ask applicants to choose or list three names in personal statement. I assume that whoever I list the first I should try to write how my interests match his/her research areas. But by doing this professors listed as the second or the third may be much less likely to choose you because you specify how much you like the other professor's research. However, if you make it broad (e.g., anxiety disorders) then the first one you list may not feel like it's a close match since you didn't point out much details about the match. I guess is it just a tradeoff and we just have to make a decision?

Shall I just decide on one professor and try to tailor the essay to his/her research areas or make it broader in this case? I mean to increase the chance of admission considering that my interests are kind of broad within this area.

In a competitive program, I guess it's almost impossible for professors to select applicants from those who put them in the second or third choice??

Any advice will be appreciated.

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[thefall]

That is a challenging issue. It requires some diplomacy. Based on your posting, it's still vague as to the dilemma you're facing. If you're listing 3 b/c the question asks for 3, but the truth is that only one faculty member there has research interests that strongly correlate with your own, what you write about #2s and 3 may, as you wrote, come across weakly. That's not your fault. Have you thoroughly researched all the professors' published works? It could be that those other profs have at least one journal article that is more related to your interests. Assuming that article was recent, you can tailor what you write about #2 and #3 to those articles. Doing so says much about you, in a positive way. If mentioning a 2nd or 3rd prof is going to be a stretch and their interests really don't match yours, my suggestion is don't bother. You're correct that even though you share a focus on anxiety, but the prof's approach doesn't match yours when it comes to its treatment and approach, it's not going to be a match with the strength to take you 5 or 6 years working together. Just focus strongly on the one match, if that's all that exists. Don't look for matches with a prof whose focus may only be a fleeting interest for you that seems incongruous with the rest of your application, simply to write about three. Still, in the end, it is very possible that your application will be reviewed by all faculty on the admissions committee this year to determine whether you can be matched with a different prof than your #1 choice. But there are so many variables that can affect this process. Maybe your #1 choice has been around longer so their foci are more established and well known. The other variable may be that these other profs are newer faculty members, and younger, whose foci are still evolving, but not stated in the website or found in their published articles. So you never know. If however you can find some legitimate connections between your interests and your 2nd and 3rd choices, write about all three. They won't necessarily be offended by length comparisons. Because if the #1 choice selects another student to advise, though I certainly hope that's not the case for you, and the others haven't found someone they think is a good fit for them, simply because you don't devote as much space in your SOP to them will not disqualify your chances. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[hokie11]

I talked to one of my professors about this actually, and she literally pulled out a list of applicants that they were considering for the graduate school at my University...there were about 15 names on this list, and she circled about 3-4 that she was willing to accept -- only because they had either just listed her in their personal statement, or primarily focused on her lab/research. Basically, she pretty much ignored the students who listed more than one professor. I'd say, focus on the professor you really want to work with, and don't rely on second or third choices. I think what they might do is focus on your primary match and accept you, but rarely will they look at your second choices (because it may seem like you weren't serious enough about them to list them as your primaries.) Only if they have very similar research would I think it be appropriate...like if both faculty had strong research backgrounds based in anxiety disorders and autism or something.

 

[Mauricia]

You might want to carefully check the website though or contact the admissions person, I'm applying to clinical psych programs with multiple mentor models and that is why they want you to pick multiple mentors. I also think most professors are mature and will not be offended if you like one of their colleagues research in addition to their own, as long as they have similar research it won't look bad. If it's really different and it's not a multiple mentor program, it's probably fine to just write about one even if they ask for three, as long as it's not mandatory to write about three.

 

[nancynyc]

I talked to one of my professors about this actually, and she literally pulled out a list of applicants that they were considering for the graduate school at my University...there were about 15 names on this list, and she circled about 3-4 that she was willing to accept -- only because they had either just listed her in their personal statement, or primarily focused on her lab/research. Basically, she pretty much ignored the students who listed more than one professor. I'd say, focus on the professor you really want to work with, and don't rely on second or third choices. I think what they might do is focus on your primary match and accept you, but rarely will they look at your second choices (because it may seem like you weren't serious enough about them to list them as your primaries.) Only if they have very similar research would I think it be appropriate...like if both faculty had strong research backgrounds based in anxiety disorders and autism or something.

I've been listing two profs I'd want to work with on most of mine because what if one of them isn't taking students or has gotten a ton of applicants saying they want to work with him/her? I would think listing more than one person would increase your chances of getting an interview... any other thoughts on this?

 

[StudentBsMs11]

I've been listing two profs I'd want to work with on most of mine because what if one of them isn't taking students or has gotten a ton of applicants saying they want to work with him/her? I would think listing more than one person would increase your chances of getting an interview... any other thoughts on this?

My initial thought after reading this is that it is always a good idea to contact potential POIs to ask if they are taking a student for that application cycle. There's no point wasting time and money applying to work with a person who isn't going to take anyone at all, let alone you. The worst thing that can happen is they don't respond to your email, in which case you still know exactly as much as you did before, while if they respond you'll know for sure where you stand on that particular point. Of course, this is assuming they haven't already posted that information on their website somewhere - some professors do that, as well.

I would also say that you'll want to be careful about matching, since fit is very important to interviews and acceptance, particularly in programs which use a mentor model (which is pretty much all, with a few rare exceptions, from what I've seen).