7. First Email to Supervisors

Many research-based master's and doctoral programs in some universities expect you to connect a supervisor prior to applying while others may assign a supervisor once you apply/ start in your program. If there is such need of having the approval of a potential supervisor, then it is recommended to write to potential supervisors in advance (keep in mind about the deadlines of scholarships and deadlines for a certain university intake). 

Usually, most universities have 2 intakes for postgraduate studies. They are fall intake (starting on August/ September) and winter intake (starting on December/ January). For fall intake, deadlines for MSc/ PhD applications are usually ranging from September (previous year) to April (applying year). For winter intake, deadlines for MSc/ PhD applications are usually within May to August. However, this may vary according to the country, university, and your desired program.

To find potential supervisors who have parallel research interests like you, you can follow either method as given below.

• Just google it as “ supervisors of the research area in university name ”
• Go to University website -> Research section -> Research centres/ groups
• Go to University website -> Under Faculty & Staff section
• Go to University website -> Departments (under Academics section) -> Select possible department where the interesting research area can exist -> Faculty/ lecturers/ staff directory section

This is not easy if you actually need to get a considerable amount of responses from supervisors. It should be specific and not a copied one. All the important documents should be attached in the first email. I have prepared the first email after studying the materials and comments given by various professors and experienced graduate students. The first email is really significant to convince a potential supervisor that you will be a good research student under him/her and it can also secure financial assistance to do your postgraduate study (if the supervisor already has some funding).

There is no right or wrong way to write the first email, but the only thing you should pay more attention is to provide a brief but also a sufficient amount of details to prove him/ her that you will be an outstanding research student. My first email consists of 3 paragraphs.

1st Paragraph Summary of interest of yourself to particular supervisor/ department and objective of this email	Interest to work with respective supervisor,  proof to show that I have referred his/her research work, reference of respective department's graduate school website, if there is any link to particular university/supervisor, the objective of this email
2nd Paragraph Summary of yourself to show the supervisor that you are a good candidate	Educational and research background, work experience, IELTS/ GRE scores,  current status
3rd Paragraph Your expectations and passion, ultimate goals and thanking	Interest to the particular research area and reason for that, future goals, expected study intake, enquiry of MSc/ PhD opportunities, reason for the selection of a particular university, expression of gratitude

I made a word document for each supervisor I was going to write to and then each document contains the email with their email addresses. I have sent the following attachments to supervisors.
I made the draft of the first letter to supervisors and then changed it according to supervisors, department & university. The most important thing is that many supervisors do not prefer to read ordinary or generic emails which have the same content to any Professor. So be specific, then the supervisor will have a good impression that you certainly have an interest in working with him. Then, send the email according to the time zone. Many supervisors receive lots of emails by prospective students and these emails will be stacked up. So it is always better to send it on their time at 8.00 am (check time difference) on a working day.

· Transcript & Degree certificate

· Research publications 

· Academic CV

· Other certificates (including IELTS/ GRE Scores)

· Service letters (worthy if only related to academic field)

It is a well-known fact that all the supervisors whom you contact may not reply to you. It is very ordinary and you do not need to worry. The safest thing to do is to write to supervisors as much as possible until you are able to obtain some reliable options. After sending the first email, you can send three reminders in the following 3 weeks. I have maintained another Excel sheet for including the details of responses from supervisors I received. 

* You can refer the Excel sheet I prepared in the following drive for further understanding.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vyAMCsL7CTnDzw0t0U1guUitBEMfutPL/view?usp=sharing

Types of replies I received;

• Impressed and like to have an interview
• Impressed, but at the moment no funding and there may be some opportunities later, so later contact
• Impressed, but no funding, if the university scholarship can be obtained then welcoming to his/her lab
• Impressed, but he/she has no funding
• Impressed, but he/she has no available spaces for new students
• Impressed, but he/she are not in a position for supervising
• Impressed, but he/she are not available for supervising (Ex: Sabbatical/ maternity leaves)
• Sent some forms to fill (Ex: expression of interest) and later contact
• Not replied even after 3 reminders 

Therefore, depending on the responses I have created a colour code and screen out some supervisors who were not able to do supervising me. I have included it in the excel sheet I created for supervisor responses and it helped me to decide to which supervisors I should contact further/ send reminders, etc. That sheet includes all the details of the supervisor name, university, replied/ not, response details, colour code, date of the email sent, the number of reminders sent, etc.

• Red: No option
• Orange: Not sure yet
• Yellow: Maybe
• Green: Most probable

It is always better to connect with/ get approval from more than 1 supervisor because sometimes even after approval and making the online application, the supervisor can change his/her mind due to some unavoidable situation. It may not be very common, but I experienced such a situation that one of my MSc application was rejected at the last moment because of being unable to secure the supervisor.

* You can study some materials uploaded (which I have used as references) in the following drive for further understanding. 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RfQO9ap-8k_jvX3HySjdayF7DU3svebi?usp=sharing